


Digimon Detective Story: The Rise of Zodiacmon

by moodymozart



Category: Digimon - All Media Types, Digimon Story Series | Digimon World Series
Genre: Action/Adventure, Detectives, Gen, Mystery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:46:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23371903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodymozart/pseuds/moodymozart
Summary: Henry McCree is a young man with a passion for detective work, but when he takes an internship with a shady private investigation firm with supernatural ties to another world, everything changes.
Comments: 16





	1. Beginning

Henry’s passion (or more like an obsession) for criminal justice had begun at a young age; he used to sit in his living room, only inches away from the television screen, a bowl of cereal in his lap. He would spend hours upon hours watching and rewatching his favorite detective shows, scanning the screen for clues. He’d watched them so often, in fact, that he began to solve the crimes in the show before the characters even did. His family was worried at first, but eventually they had just gotten used to it. Henry stayed up to odd hours reading the works of Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, and other great mystery novelists. So when he graduated high school and decided to pursue a degree in criminal justice, there was absolutely no shock.  
Flashbacks to childhood moments echoed through Henry’s mind as he stood in front of the ominous double doors of Burondo & Associates Private Investigators. Now 19 years old, today was his first day as an intern for a REAL private investigator. This was a day he had dreamt of his entire life. His heart was pounding so hard that he could feel it in his throat.   
Inside of this small, hole in the wall building, down a street in Brooklyn he had never been to, was one of the biggest moments in Henry’s life. Big moments usually either go extremely well or hideously bad. Would he be horrible? Would he embarrass himself? Henry shook his head, throwing caution to the wind. He closed his eyes, held his breath, and pushed the door open. The inside of the building was just like any other small office. 4 cubicles sat in the center of the room. A break room was off to the left of the cubicles and behind them was an office, presumably Mr. Burondo’s office. At one of the cubicles, three employees stood and were chatting away. They all looked quite young, maybe in their early to mid 20’s. When Henry walked in, they all looked at him. It only took them a few seconds to return back to their conversation. Henry nodded awkwardly and walked to the office door. It was labeled “Burondo”. Henry once again held his breath and opened the door.  
This would be the first of two shocking things that would happen to him today. Instead of the cozy, vintage, simple detective’s office he had expected to see from all the movies, complete with cigarette smoke and fresh coffee, he saw- well- something else. This office was an overload of the senses on all fronts. The first thing Henry was hit by was the smell. Noxiously sweet, fruit scented candles wafted through the air, blasting into his face when he opened the door, as if it was trying to escape the garish appearance of the room it was in. And garish it was, designed with bright, clashing colors that took a few blinks to adjust to. Strewn about the floor were random stuffed plush toys and pillows.   
There was, at least, a desk in the center of the room, situated in front of a tall window. The window only had a view into the creepy alleyway behind the building, but it at least let some natural light in. Behind the desk was not the hardened old Mr. Burondo that Henry was led to believe owned the agency, but a young woman, maybe mid 30s. She was asian, but unlike the common stereotype of slight, small asian women, she appeared quite tall and was plump. She had hair that was bleached blonde and was dressed just as eccentrically as she had decorated the office, complete with huge, chunky earrings in the shape of watermelon slices.   
“May I help you?” The woman said, not looking up from her desktop computer.  
“Um- Am I in the wrong office? I’m the new intern, I-I was told to look for Mr. Ichiro Burondo” Henry said in his meek voice. The woman looked up with a strange smile.  
“Well you were told wrong. Mr. Burondo is my father, and he’s been retired for 3 years.” The woman laughed, standing up. She was taller than Henry, who was 5’8”, “I’m Kazashi Burondo. But most people just call me Kaz. And what was your name again? Henry…”  
“McCree. Henry McCree, Miss Kazashi.” Henry said, pushing up his large, round glasses. Kaz smiled and patted him on the back, a bit too roughly.   
“Well, Henry! Now that you’ve met the Burondo in ‘Burondo & Associates’ it’s about time you met the associates!” She said smiling, leading Henry to the door with a hand on his lower back. She pushed the young man out of her office, keeping her hand on him.  
“Attention everybody!” she shouted. The three employees looked up.   
“You don’t have to yell, there’s only 3 of us.” said a young woman with faded red hair.  
“I’d like you all to meet our new intern from NYU, Henry McCree! He’s apparently the top of his class in the Criminal Justice department.” Kaz explained. “All his professors gave a glowing recommendation, so I couldn’t refuse to hire him! Even though we really haven’t had an intern here since, well, my father worked here. So let’s all give a big hand to our new friend and introduce ourselves!” They all clapped for Henry, who shyly shoved his hands into his pockets and blushed. Kaz walked the boy over to the rest of the group. “Let’s all introduce ourselves, going down the line, starting with Blossom!”  
Kaz pointed to the redhead. She wasn’t especially tall but she looked extremely tough. She had long red hair tied up into a clean ponytail. She smiled but it somehow seemed to come off as threatening.   
“The name’s Detective Blossom Riley. I’m our top detective here at B&A. I’ve been workin’ here the longest, besides Kaz. She ‘n I were partners before her father retired and she took over this whole shindig.” She had a Brooklyn accent that just added to her toughness.   
The next to speak was the man sitting in the chair, he appeared quite scrawny, yet was extremely handsome. He was African-American and had his hair long and in braids with an undercut. The braids were kept up messily in a bun on the top of his head.   
“I’m Niko D’Angelo. I work as our head of Research and head of Information Technology. Basically- I’m the computer geek.” He laughed. “I’ve only been working here for a few years, but it feels like a lifetime.” His voice was smooth and easy on the ears.   
The final employee was the pink-haired woman. She wore heavy makeup that was skillfully applied, she was intimidatingly beautiful. Tied to one side of her hair was a large teal ribbon, which matched the rest of her outfit. Which looked extremely expensive. The outfit was completed by a pair of teal heels. Henry noticed the bottoms of said heels were red. They made her significantly taller, but she was still a bit shorter than everyone else.   
“The best for last, of course, I’m Karina Dawnly! Our second-to-top detective! Blossom and I are partners on most of our cases. Me and Niko went to college together and applied here at the same time, so we’ve both only been here for a few years.” She had a squeaky voice.   
“Well Henry, we hope you’ll like it here!” Kaz said. Henry smiled back.  
“I think I will!” He replied.   
“I hate to put you to work so soon, but we’re going to need a bit more time to help set things up for you. Do you mind going out to get us some coffee? There’s a Starbucks just around the corner.” Kaz pulls out her wallet and hands Henry a 20 dollar bill. “I’ll have a grande black, just how my dad used to drink it.”  
“Same here.” Blossom huffed.   
“Venti Iced Oatmilk Honey Latte with Blonde Espresso.” Karina chirped automatically, like a printer spitting out words.  
“I’ll just take a Matcha Lemonade. Grande.” Niko added. Henry nodded, took the money and went off.  
“Feel free to get yourself something, and take your time!” Kaz shouted as Henry left. He gave a thumbs-up as he shut the door to the building.  
Meanwhile inside the building, the detectives looked at each other silently.  
“That is one jumpy kid, I don’t know how we’re going to introduce our… secret weapons to him without putting him into cardiac arrest.” Kaz said.  
“Well, Niko and I took it pretty well.” Karina noted. “All you did was silently take us aside. We instantly believed you.”  
“You must keep in mind that Karina believed My Little Pony was real until Sophomore year when she couldn’t find ‘Equestria’ on my globe.” Niko argued. “And honestly, I’m such a huge Sci-fi fan that I just wanted to believe you were right. Got lucky, I guess.”   
“Just ease him into it? It’s not that damn complicated. All we needa sure of is that we can trust ‘em and have ‘em sign the NDA.” Blossom grumbled. Kaz’s eyes widened.  
“How about we just rip the band aid off! When he comes back we summon our Digimon to show him what he signed up for- and when he freaks out we can just have our partners put on the charm. Who can refuse such cute little faces?” Kaz boomed. “Here, Niko, be Henry and we can practice.” Niko nodded and stood up. “Hey Henry. Now that you’ve begun assimilating into the office, we have something to tell you. We aren’t any ordinary P.I.’s office. It may be hard to believe, but we specialize in a certain type of detective-work that some may call supernatural.”  
“Say WHAT? Don’t get all crazy on me detective lady!” Niko acted, poorly.  
“Now- don’t say that. Our work is real work. And we can prove it. We have a few more employees we would like you to meet.” Kaz said, nodding to Blossom and Karina. The three girls pulled out their phones, which had a small attachment on the bottom, similar in appearance to a mobile credit-card reader. They pointed their phones at the desktop in Niko’s cubicle. Their phones glowed with a white light, matching the computer’s screen. Beams of light shot out between the computer and the phones.  
“I summon thee, Mochimon!” Kaz shouted.  
“I summon thee, Kiwimon!” Karina repeated.  
“I summon thee, Hawkmon!” Blossom added.  
A blinding flash of light burst throughout the room and dissipated slowly. Once their eyes readjusted, standing in front of the desk were three peculiar creatures. One was a small, pink creature who appeared like a blob of ice cream with arms. The other two were both bird-like. One was bigger, with strong legs but no wings. It had a white helmet with leaves growing out from it instead of feathers. The other was smaller and had bright red feathers, save for its white head, on which it wore a headband.  
“Alright, well. I think after this he’s basically convinced so we shouldn’t need to practice anymore, let’s go ahead and send these three back before he gets back and sees-'' Kaz was cut off by the petrified looks of her employees. “Is something wrong?” They all pointed to the direction of the door.   
Standing in the doorway was Henry, holding a drink, with 5 coffee cups. He was also quite petrified, staring at the creatures that had just magically appeared out of a computer screen before his very eyes.   
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE THOSE?!” Henry shouted after what felt like an eternity of awkward silence.  
“I’ve been sayin’ we needa put a bell on that door.” Blossom muttered.  
That was the second shocking thing that would happen to Henry that day, and he would never be the same after.


	2. The Digital World

Henry had opened the door to the agency, a drink holder full of coffee in his other hand. But when he had done that he was blinded by a bright light, once the light had disappeared, three monstrous creatures stood in front of the three detectives he’d just met.  
“Did those monsters just APPEAR? LIKE OUT OF THIN AIR? HUH? WHY IS NO ONE SAYING ANYTHING?” Henry began to back up. His hands were shaking, still holding onto the drink holder.  
“Henry calm down, there’s an explanation for all of this. Just come over here, sit down.” Kaz reasoned.  
“Gimme that coffee! I don’t care if you just had your mind blown, Mama still needs her cold brew-“ Karina cooed before snatching her drink from Henry and taking a sip.  
“Is this that Intern you got an email about?” The pink creature asked Kaz.  
“THEY CAN FUCKING TALK?” Henry said, shaking again. His head darted around the room until they landed on Niko, who was awkwardly standing next to Kaz. He shoved the drink holder into Niko’s abdomen for him to grab it. Niko flinched but grabbed it. Kaz grabbed a coffee and handed it to Blossom. She then picked up the last one and took a sip of it.  
“Listen Henry, we have a lot to tell you so I’m going to need you to sign an NDA first.” Kaz laughed. She snapped and Karina darted into her office to grab the NDA and a pen. She handed them to Henry.  
“A nondisclosure agreement?” Henry asked, calming down a bit.  
“That is what it stands for…” Kaz replied, confused.  
“No no, I mean- magic birds and… an ice cream blob that can talk just teleported into our FUCKING OFFICE and I think we should call FUCKING ANIMAL CONTROL?!” Henry's mercurial tone of voice caused the rest of the room to jump when he started shouting again.  
“We can all talk, excuse you, some of us better than others, actually.” The red bird said in the voice of a man with a british accent. It turned to the larger brown one beside it.  
“Just because i’m not gooder than you at talking don’t mean i’m stupid!” The other bird huffed. Its voice was like a very squeaky nasally-sounding american woman’s. The first crossed its wings and rolled it’s eyes. Henry started to hyperventilate. Kaz and Niko grabbed nearby files and fanned the boy.  
“Ok look. Have you ever heard of the multiverse theory?” Kaz asked.  
“Uhhh… I think in a youtube video… Every decision you make in your life creates a new parallel universe in which you chose another option?” Henry said through deep breaths. Niko stopped fanning Henry and dug through his bag and pulled out an inhaler. Henry snatched it and gulped the air down. “Thanksss” He crowed. Niko nodded.  
“Yes! What many don’t consider, however, is just HOW many decisions have been made to get us to where we are. Even the birth of our universe and the creation of our reality was a choice. And so, for that choice there is another route where a completely different reality was created, and even one where there is no reality, but that would be extremely hard for any human to comprehend. So basically, do you understand where I’m going with this?” Kaz had begun to look up, waving her hands to paint a picture along with what she was saying. When she looked back down, Henry was clearly bewildered.  
“That reality is completely different to ours, it’s like an alien planet! Except it isn’t horribly different, they at least have things such as gravity, water, and plants, but it’s definitely a different world.” Niko explained.  
“But this is all theoretical, there’s no actual way to prove any of that. You can’t look into this other world. Can you?” Henry asked.  
“Yep! Computer screens! Any device with an internet connection! Like your phone!” Karina said, pointing to Henry’s pocket, where his phone created a rectangular bulge.  
“The internet actually acts like a bridge between our realities, and computers act as the window into it. But, Henry, windows CAN BE OPENED!” Kaz exclaimed, hoping to blow Henry’s mind with that last part. He just furrowed his brow, still confused.  
“OH MY GOD!” Blossom shouted. “These things are from that other world and we can summon them through computers. There, was that SO hard? We work with them as partners because they have really badass powers.”  
“Oooh... why didn’t you just say that?” Henry said.  
“So although these creatures and their world do have a name, it’s completely impossible to pronounce in human tongue. So we just call it ‘The Digital World’.” Niko added.  
“The Digital World… wow!” Henry said. “This is a wack-ass dream I’m having. But hey why not just go along with it.” He shook his head as he signed the papers Karina handed him. He then stood up. “So you guys can talk? Do you have names?”  
“I’m Kiwimon, and this is Hawkmon!” the brown bird said, the red one nodded at the mention of his name.  
“And I’m Mochimon!” The little pink blob said, bouncing excitedly.  
“Since they come from the Digital World, we call them Digital Monsters- or Digimon. My father came up with that.” Kaz laughed. “He and his old partner Plotmon were closer than you can get. That is until…” Kaz seemed to have lost her train of thought. She suddenly popped her head up and beamed at Henry. “So Henry, any questions?”  
“You said they had powers? And they’re your partners, so they’re employed here?” Henry asked.  
“When we were hired we all got paired with a digimon. They aren’t exactly ‘employees’ but they work with us and are trained to be quite skilled fighters. And things can get dangerous in the Digital World, so it’s good to have the muscle.” Blossom explained as her partner, Hawkmon, fluttered up to her.  
“And that means, Henry, if you’re going to get the ‘field experience’ you need, then you’re going to need a digimon partner of your own!” Kaz sang. She pushed Henry up in front of Niko’s computer screen. “We’re going to take a field trip to the Digital World! C’mon everyone!”  
Kaz pulled out her phone again, linking her arm with Henry’s. She held the device up to the screen. The other detectives followed suit. And in an instant, the gang was engulfed in a blinding light. Henry felt a gust of wind from the front, as if he were traveling on the fastest rollercoaster in the world. Once the light had dissipated and Henry’s eyes readjusted, he was shocked to see what he did.  
The eight of them stood in the middle of a small town, decorated with pastel colors. It reminded Henry of the town Dorothy had landed in in the “Wizard of Oz”. Another digimon creature stood there, seemingly waiting for them. It was hideous and scary, with a large, bulbous head upon which were two vacant eyes and an eerie grin. Tentacles hung down from this creature, alongside two long, spindly arms.  
“HI!” It said in a garbled voice.  
“AAAAAAAAAAH! WERE GONNA FUCKING DIE!” Henry shrieked. The creature started shrieking back, mimicking Henry. Niko ran forward to the creature and embraced it.  
“Shhh shhh, it’s okay buddy. He didn’t mean that. It’s okay.” He hummed. The creature began to calm down, his eyes a little teary. “Henry, this is Keramon. He’s not much of a talker.” Niko chuckled. He let go of Keramon, but the creature still held onto his hand.  
“Keramon is really sensitive. Which makes him the perfect match for Niko. I’ve never seen him even step on a bug.” Karina giggled.  
“He’s actually still a baby, sort of. No new digimon are ever born, they live full lives and then reincarnate as eggs. This means every digimon you see has had many past lives. And they don’t have parents. Keramon had just hatched when Niko got here, poor digimon was a wreck. He was the only one that could calm the thing down.” Kaz noted.  
“So then that means Keramon, being really young, died recently?” Henry inquired. Kaz nodded.  
“Well, now that you’ve met all of our partners, let’s get you set up with one!” Kaz clapped. She then put her fingers in her mouth and whistled loudly. She directed the group’s attention to a dry fountain in the middle of the town. It began to suddenly gush with water. A figure, flickering like a glitchy hologram, began to rise out of the water. It’s hologram-like appearance suddenly became solid. It was a strange robot that looked like a short girl in a pinafore and dress, but without a face. She had her hands clasped together in front of her.  
“Hello! How may I be of assistance?” She said.  
“WOAH! They have robots here?” Henry marveled, running up to the android.  
“Actually, this is a digimon, as well! Her name is Infomon. She’s older than any other digimon. She now works with us at B&A” Kaz explained. Infomon nodded.  
“And who is this?” Infomon asked.  
“I’m Henry McCree… I-I‘m just an intern.” Henry stuttered.  
“Ah! So you’ll need a digimon? Let’s take a look at your options!” Infomon reached a hand behind her back and brought out a clipboard with a few sheets of paper clipped to it. They had little pictures of digimon creatures next to a description of them. “Please browse our catalogue!”  
“So I just pick one from the list?” Henry asked.  
“Precisely, Mr. McCree!” Infomon chirped. “Choose wisely!”  
The list was full of interesting creatures. Some even appeared to be living plants. Henry was still in complete disbelief. One of the digimon has caught his eye. It looked like a mini T-Rex, but it was bright yellow.  
“I think I’m feeling this guy! Agumon?” He said.  
“Ah! A great choice, I’ll just have to give Agumon a call and he should be on his-“ Infomon was cut off by the sound of distant screaming.  
“What the hell is that?” Blossom exclaimed. The group looked around until Karina screamed.  
“LOOK! THERE! THAT’S A GIANT DIGIMON RUNNING STRAIGHT FOR US!” She pointed off on the outskirts of the town. A gigantic, purple digimon with what appeared to be a drill on its nose was barreling towards them. The screaming was coming from a smaller digimon in front of it that was running for its life.  
“That’s Drimogemon! It is quite powerful!” Infomon commented.  
“It’s chasing that poor little digimon!” Niko added. “What should we do, Kaz?”  
“What the fuck do you mean? We have to stop it from tearing everything down!” Blossom shouted. “Hawkmon you know what to do!” Hawkmon nodded. He took to the air and launched himself towards Drimogemon.  
“HAWK CLAW!” The bird shouted as it’s talons became encased in pink light. He zoomed down to Drimogemon and slashed at it. The digimon was temporarily thrown backwards from the surprise attack, but wasn’t deterred for very long. It was, however, long enough that the little digimon was able to run ahead and into the town. Up close, it was easier to see what it was. It appeared like a small deer with metal plates in its head and legs, like armor.  
“HEEEEEELP!” It shouted.  
Mochimon hopped onto Kiwimon’s back as the bird ran towards the scene. Mochimon hopped into the air and puffed up like a balloon. When it opened its mouth, a barrage of bubbles zoomed towards Drimogemon like bullets. Drimogemon once again was temporarily immobilized. However, it did not stop trying to head towards the deer-like digimon. The small digimon ran up to the humans (plus Keramon and Infomon).  
“He won’t stop chasing me! He just appeared out of nowhere! I’ve never seen him in my life before! I don’t know why he’s so bent on killing me!” The digimon exclaimed. Her voice was very high pitched and squealy.  
“Don’t worry, we’ve got it covered.” Blossom assured.  
“C’MON LITTLE PECKERS!” Kiwimon shouted. Four or five smaller round chick-like creatures who looked similar to Kiwimon appeared and ran to Drimogemon, jumping onto him. They then promptly exploded, hurting Drimogemon even more. This started to knock the digimon back. He countered with a swipe of his large claw. The digimon easily dodged the attack. After even more attacks, the mole-mon became enraged and just charged forward into the town.  
“REINDEERMON! YOU CAN’T GET AWAY FROM ME THAT EASILY!” Drimogemon shouted. “YOU’LL PAY FOR WHAT YOU DID!”  
“What you did?” Henry asked, looking down at the digimon, who was seemingly named Reindeermon.  
“I DIDNT DO ANYTHING I SWEAR!” Reindeermon shouted. Drimogemon eventually caught up to the group. He was seething with anger.  
“Yes you did!” He exclaimed. “You were the one who made me look like a fool in front of Monzaemon! You couldn’t resist but to pull ANOTHER ONE OF YOUR INSOLENT PRANKS! Not to mention you are in deep deep debt to me after you keep coming into my restaurant and asking me for free food.”  
“Look, bro. I’m sorry that you can’t take a joke. And how am I supposed to get money to pay ya back?” Reindeermon retorted. “Can you believe this guy? He’s crying over a whoopie cushion!”  
“REINDEERMON! Do you WANT me to call in the big guns?” Drimogemon shouted. “You don’t want to have to answer to Leomon, so you?” Reindeermon’s eyes widened in fear.  
“N-No! I don’t know what you want! I don’t have a job- I-“ Reindeermon looked up to Henry. “Wait wait- you guys hire digimon right? I-I could work with you guys? I could be a detective and get some cash?”  
“I-I” Henry stuttered. Kaz looked like she was lost in thought. Mochimon hopped off of Kiwimon.  
“Well… Henry, you ARE only an intern. If you and Reindeermon were partners she could get money to pay off her debt and once your internship is over and Reindeermon’s paid everything off you could part ways. The two of you are both untrained so we could train you side by side! I think it’s a great idea!” Kaz beamed.  
“Woah woah, but what about Agumon? Can we get him in here? I-I wanted him…” Henry squeaked.  
“What the fuck, bro? Way to be a pal! It’s either this or Leomon chews my ass!” Reindeermon badgered. Henry sighed.  
“Fine…” Henry gave in.  
“HELL YEAH! Bye Drimogemon!” Reindeermon shouted. The giant digimon rolled his eyes.  
“If you need me to come take this little shit back, I will.” Drimogemon said before turning around and waddling away.  
Infomon reached behind her back and pulled out another pad of papers.  
“Alright, Henry, just sign these and you and Reindeermon will officially be partners!” Infomon chimed. Henry took a long look at Reindeermon and sighed once again, reluctantly signing the papers.  
“I guess if it’s only temporary…” He muttered.  
“YAAAY! We’re gonna be best buds.” Reindeermon cheered. Henry groaned.  
“One final thing,” Infomon said, grabbing the papers and making them disappear behind her back. She then pulled her hand out and again had a new item, a small device that was like what the other detectives had clipped onto their phones. However, this one was sky blue colored. “This is your digivice!” The other detectives oohed- and aahed at it.  
“Ugh! Yours is such a cute color, I got stuck with red.” Karina whined. “At least you didn't get pink. Then I’d be REALLY upset.”  
“Clip this digivice onto the bottom of your cellphone and you can use it for a multitude of functions! It is not only your (and your digimon’s) source of entry and exit from the digital world, but your digimon will be able to send you text notifications from the digital world in case they urgently need you for any reason. They also allow you to give your digimon any upgrades it needs as well as allows your partner to digivolve!” Infomon explained.  
“Digivolve? What’s that?” Henry asked.  
“Oh don’t worry. You’ll find out. But time is a little funky in the Digital World, so we should head home now before we’ve been gone too long.” Kaz said, placing a hand on Henry’s shoulder. Henry clipped his digivice onto his phone.  
“Now how do we get out?” He asked. The rest of the team laughed as they held their phone screens up to the sky. Beams of light shot down from the sky and engulfed them. And in a flash, they were gone. Henry quickly did the same.  
Once they’d arrived back at the office, Henry was exhausted, a similar feeling to severe jet lag. He looked around wearily at the others, who’d all gone to their cubicles (and Kaz to her office) and were typing away. He blinked a few times.There were no digimon, and everything seemed normal.  
‘D-did i just have a weird-ass dream? On my first day? That was funky as hell. At least it’s over…’ Henry’s train of thought was cut off by his phone buzzing. He looked at it and saw a text notification from an unknown contact.

_Hey hey hey Henry Bo-Benry! I’m excited to start working with you partner! This is Reindeermon btw._

Henry looked up from his phone and immediately collapsed onto the floor and fainted. 


	3. The Next Day

The night of Henry’s first day as an intern for B&A was relatively quiet. Henry hadn’t received any more texts from Reindeermon and all seemed normal, considering the day he had just had. He stayed up until 2 am in his small apartment researching and trying to wrap his brain around this whole “Digimon” thing. He could’ve sworn he’d dreamt it all, but the digivice attached to his phone was very real. He’d held his phone up to his personal laptop screen many times, considering visiting the Digital World to see if it’s real. But every time he’d chickened out, afraid that something may happen to him if he did.  
Henry could not force himself to sleep no matter how hard he tried. Flashes of the day were popping in and out of his head. Drimogemon barreling towards him, Reindeermon and her incredibly dirty mouth. Where on earth did a deer learn to talk like that? Henry giggled but quickly stopped, realizing how crazy it is that a deer could even talk in the first place.   
Henry eventually gave up on trying to sleep and pulled out his phone, opening it to google. He hadn’t thought to google about digimon before. “Surely a portal to another world can’t be that well hidden of a secret, right? The detectives at B&A aren’t even scientists, there’s no way they could be the firsts to discover this.” He thought.  
His first search for “Digital World” did not yield many results. Besides a strange, cheap Sci-Fi MMO game. He was disheartened, but kept digging. The search term for “Digimon”, however, did bring something interesting up. An article on a relatively small news website, Henry had never heard of before. He clicked on the article and was bombarded by pop-up ads. After clicking off of all of them, though, he was able to read the article:

_“Dec. 16th 2002, Police arrested a man having an extreme psychotic episode in Central Park. 31 year old Michael Parker, a private investigator working at the small Brooklyn P.I. firm “Burondo & Associates” began writhing on the ground and screaming strange words.   
Witnesses say he was making references to the world ending due to the explosion of a star, and a magical second dimension called “The Digital World”, inhabited by creatures called “Digimon”. Police were able to stop and escort Parker to a nearby hospital where he is currently being examined.”_

Henry started to feel himself drift off as he read the last few words of the article. And suddenly, he was asleep. He had a dream that the Digital World didn’t really exist and he was an intern for a normal detective. That dream didn’t last very long.  
The next morning, Henry’s alarm blared him awake. He groggily shut it off and got up and began to get ready for his second day. His second day as an intern for Burondo & Associates. His second day in a fantasy land where he has a magic talking Reindeer for a friend. This would be a doozy. Once he was dressed in his work clothes, he’d begun to walk to work.  
Henry decided to stop at Starbucks and get the office coffee again. He was an intern, after all. Once done he made his way to the B&A building and shyly entered. Karina was standing next to Niko at his cubicle and the two were chatting. Blossom was nowhere to be found.   
“Hey Henry!” Karina boomed when he walked in. Her loud voice made Henry jump. He walked up to them.  
“H-hey Karina, Niko. I brought you all coffee again. Where’s Blossom?” Henry asked.  
“She’s in the digital world investing some dumb case.” Karina said, rolling her eyes. She quickly snatched up her coffee and began to sip it. “She never takes a break. Even in times like this where business is so slow.”  
“She just takes her job very seriously.” Niko said, grabbing his drink from Henry’s tray.  
“Ugh! I know! She’s such a hard-ass. Imagine being her partner.” Karina groaned. “I feel bad for Hawkmon, he’s basically her slave.”   
“Oh come on. What we do is important. You should take after her.” Niko states. Karina looked at Henry.  
“Henry, you agree with me right? We work with magical monsters from another dimension, Blossom needs to relax.” Karina asked in a demanding tone. Henry was visibly nervous.   
“I-I… um… She is kind of scary… B-but i wouldn’t go so far as to-“ Henry began but was cut off by Kaz’s office door opening.  
“Henry! Welcome back! What are you three chatting about?” Kaz chimed in, stepping out of her office.  
“We’re just getting to know our new friend a bit more.” Karina giggled innocently. “We didn’t have much time to talk yesterday so we thought we’d help him open up.”  
“Yup!” Henry chirped in agreement. Karina nodded to him.   
“Good that you mention that! Because I think you should take Henry with you out on a case today. Show him how we do things around here. I would have had Blossom go with you, but that woman does NOT sit still.” Kaz explained. Karina smiled.  
“Sounds like fun!” She squeaked. Kaz nodded, grabbing her coffee and returning to her office. Karina looked up to Henry. “So when we start to look for a case we come and ask Niko if he’s received any new cases from the Digital World. He IS our computer guy.” Niko grinned sarcastically.  
“At least, that's what Blossom does. Karina is usually too busy watching Netflix and eating snacks.” Niko teased. Karina scoffed. “We have a case from a digimon with the pen-name ‘r0ckyr0adz69’. He said a large, scary digimon stole his precious topaz and he needs it back. Wanna take this one?”  
“Easy! Let’s do it!” Karina chimed. “I do cases like this ALL the time, actually.” Niko laughed while typing into his computer.  
“Alright it’s loaded up. Connect jump into this computer and you should be right at r0ckyr0adz69’s location.” Niko said.   
“Okay Henry, in order to connect jump into a computer just hold your phone and digivice up to the screen and completely relax your muscles. Allow the light to take you in. If you tense up, even a little bit, it won’t work.” Karina explained. Henry nodded and the two of them held up their phones to the desktop screen. And just as before, a white light and a gust of wind overcame the two of them. When the light disappeared, the two were in a large clearing in a forest, next to the mouth of a huge cave. Two beams of light shot down next to them. Reindeermon and a strange plant digimon with a red helmet that Henry didn’t recognize appeared.  
“HELL YEAH! First day on the job! What’s the sitch gang?” Reindeermon shouted as soon as she assessed the situation. Henry laughed a bit, remembering his sleep-deprived thoughts from last night. He shook his head and his focus darted over to the plant digimon.   
“Wait, who’s this? Where’s Kiwimon?” Henry pondered. Karina laughed.  
“This IS Kiwimon!” Karina explained.  
“Wait I am? I could’ve sworn I de-digivolved back into Floramon… Ugh I’m so absent minded these days. Wait, does Kiwimon have arms?” The little digimon said.  
“Digimon have this power called ‘Digivolution’.” Karina explained. “When a digimon and it’s partner have a strong enough bond, you can unlock the power to reach a larger, more powerful form. Every digimon has at least six different forms. Kiwimon was my partners fourth form, or her Champion form. This is Floramon! Her third, or Rookie form. Maintaining a Champion form for long periods takes a lot of energy, so although she usually prefers to stay as Kiwimon, it’s not always easy.”  
“I don’t think you and I formally met, by the way.” Floramon said, walking over to Henry and holding out her hand. Henry shook it.   
“Wow. This place is so weird. So can you do that too?” Henry asked, turning to Reindeermon.  
“I mean, I assume so. I’ve already done it twice on my own.” Reindeermon replied.  
“So that makes you also a Rookie?” Henry turned to Karina to make sure he was right.   
“Exactly! So, let’s try to find this Rocky digimon…” Karina stated, looking around the group’s radius. There wasn’t a single sign of another digimon to be found. “Hmm… Oh! he must be in that cave! Let’s go shout for him in there!” Karina exclaimed, running off with Floramon in tow.  
“Karina, wait!” Henry shouted, hobbling after the pink-haired girl. Reindeermon followed closely behind. Karina got to the mouth of the cave.  
“OH ROCKY ROOOOOADS! ROCKY ROAD SIXTY-NIIIIINE!” The girl shouted into the cave, hearing her loud voice echo. There was no response. She turned to Henry, “should we go in?” Just then there was a loud, earth-shattering roar and a pair of glowing, red eyes shone from deep within the cave. Henry was frozen in shock. Karina looked back. “Oh yikes…” she muttered.   
The monster in the cave came running towards them. The humans and digimon all screamed and began to run, until a small, rocky hand reached out from within a tree, grabbing Henry’s shirt and pulling him in. Henry screamed and closed his eyes, believing this was the end. He suddenly fluttered them open, realizing he wasn’t dead, he was in fact, INSIDE the tree. It was extremely large on the inside. Karina, Floramon, and Reindeermon had managed to make it inside too. A small digimon made of rocks was inside and held a finger to his mouth to signal them to be quiet. Once there was complete silence, the small digimon sighed.  
“Where are we?” Henry whispered.   
“This is a DigiHollow Tree. It’s a hologram made to hide in. We should be safe here.” the digimon explained.  
“Are you Rocky Roads?” Reindeermon asked. The rock digimon nodded.  
“My name is Gottsumon. My Topaz is a family heirloom. It’s priceless. I had left my cave alone for a weekend fishing trip with Icemon. When I returned, this horrible beast had taken over. It’s like he has NO respect for my ‘Gone Fishing’ sign! I don’t even care about my cave, I just need that Topaz!” Gottsumon explained. Karina nodded.  
“How about this Gottsumon, we’ll not only get your Topaz back but ALSO your cave.” Karina exclaimed.  
“Oh thank you, detectives! I knew I could count on you!” Gottsumon cheered.  
“Karina! Neither of our Digimon are strong enough to take on that- whatever it is.” Henry whisper-shouted.   
“Retweet, bitch!” Reindeermon added.  
“Not in THIS form!” Floramon replied. Karina and Floramon charged out of the DigiHollow Tree. Henry and Reindeermon followed reluctantly behind. Karina looked at Henry and put two fingers into her mouth. She then whistled extremely loud to the cave. The monster’s eyes opened once again. Another roar was heard and the beast charged out of the cave. It was a large blue dinosaur-looking monster with a large horn above its nose like a rhinoceros.  
“That’s V-Dramon!” Reindeermon shouted. “FUCK THIS!” She turned to run off but Henry grabbed her small, fluffy tail.   
“Let’s go, Floramon!” Karina shouted, pointing to V-Dramon. Floramon nodded, rushing forwards. She shot two large vines like ropes from her hands, The vines wrapped around V-Dramon’s thick neck. Floramon jumped into the air and slammed her vines back down, smashing V-Dramon face first onto the ground.  
“Go do something, Reindeermon.” Henry said, cautiously. Reindeermon winced and walked forward with fear.  
“Uhhhh… Sub-Zero Slam…” Reindeermon said reluctantly. She lifted up her front two hooves and slammed them onto the ground, a few large icicles shot up from the ground under V-Dramon, causing him to roar in pain.   
“Woaaah… That was so cool…” Henry said. Reindeermon looked back, and seeing Henry so amazed gave her a huge boost of confidence. She ran forward, antlers first, and slashed at V-Dramon’s side. V-Dramon roared once again.  
“We’ve totally got him.” Karina proclaimed. Just then, V-Dramon got up and tore Floramon’s vines off, grabbing them and lifting Floramon’s whole body up by her hands. He flung the plant digimon into the ground, on top of Reindeermon. Nearly knocking both of them out.   
“Shit!” Henry exclaimed.  
“Don’t worry, we’re just getting warmed up! Floramon, digivolve!” Karina shouted, lifting up her phone and pointing it towards Floramon. Floramon got up and a beam of light shot out of Karina’s phone and encased her partner.  
“Floramon digivolve TOOOO….” The digimon shouted as she began to change shape. Once the light had disappeared, a familiar face stood in Floramon’s place. “Kiwimon!” She screeched.   
V-Dramon was stunned by the sudden digivolution. Kiwimon charged towards the monster.  
“C’mon, Little Peckers!” Kiwimon shouted. Like before, she summoned her smaller army of ChibiKiwimon. They ran up to V-Dramon and exploded. Distracting V-Dramon long enough for Kiwimon to jump high into the air and try to slash at him with her beak. However she was quickly snatched up into V-Dramon’s large hand. Karina gasped.  
“Let go of her!” She shouted, running up to the blue dinosaur.  
“Karina! Stop!” Henry screamed after her, but she didn’t listen. She ran forward and began to try to punch V-Dramon’s abdomen. She was also quickly snatched up by his other claw. The detective and her partner were both screaming in V-Dramon’s clutches.   
“Henry! Do something!” Karina shouted. Henry anxiously looked at Reindeermon, who seemed still pretty weak from the blow she took from V-Dramon.  
“I-I don’t know what to do…” Henry began to tear up, feeling his muscles tense.   
“DIGIVOLVE HENRY! YOUR PHONE!” Kiwimon squawked. Henry’s moist eyes widened. He looked down to his phone. He held it out towards Reindeermon and hoped for the best.  
“Reindeermon!” Henry shouted. The little digimon looked up. “Digivolve!” He said, expecting a light to shoot out and engulf Reindeermon just as it had Floramon. Except, nothing happened. Henry frantically pulled his phone in and saw what appeared to be a loading screen with a small robotic digimon on it.  
“Hello, Mr. McCree! I’m PocketInfomon! Infomon’s previous form! I will be your guide through digivolving and using the digivice! Please enjoy this 2 hour long, unskippable tutorial on digivolving…” The small digimon went on. Henry looked up with even more terror in his eyes. V-Dramon tightened its grip on Karina and Kiwimon, the two of them screamed in pain.   
“This is it… I did everything I could. Which was nothing. I-I can’t believe i’m going to die like this.” Henry began to sob. Muttering to himself. He looked at Karina. “I-I can’t do it! I’m sorry.”  
Just then, a strange figure swooped in through the sky, knocking V-Dramon backwards. He released the girls from his claws as he fell. Karina was quickly able to run over and hop onto Kiwimon’s back. Henry looked up, it was a large red bird digimon. Like an eagle, but with the horns of a ram. On its back was Blossom. Henry concluded this was Hawkmon’s champion form.   
“BLAST LASER!” The bird screeched in a deep, menacing voice. Firey rings shot from it’s beak, causing V-Dramon to roar in pain. “V-Dramon!” the bird growled. “Leave this cave and never return, or you’ll have to go through me again!”  
V-Dramon winced in pain from the fire and roared one last time, stomping away from the cave quickly to escape Blossom and her partner. The bird glided down onto the ground next to Henry as Kiwimon ran up to him. The two women climbed off of their bird digimon. Henry was dumbfounded, tears still streaming from his face. Reindeermon was eventually able to hobble over to the group.   
“You see, one cannot digivolve immediately without first getting to know and bond with their partner. Without any sort of connection, digivolution is utterly impossible…” PocketInfomon’s video tutorial continued to ring on through Henry’s phone, cutting the silence.  
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea…” Karina muttered.   
“No, it was. But you didn’t take into account that neither Reindeermon NOR Henry had EVER digivolved before. What the hell were you trying to prove, taking on V-Dramon all on your own?” Blossom scolded Karina.  
“C-can we just go back to the office now?” Henry interjected. Karina nodded. Blossom sighed and got back onto her digimon’s back.  
“Karina. You need to grow up. And Henry needs to learn at his own pace.” Blossom turned forward. “Okay, Aquilamon, let’s go.” Aquilamon grunted and spread his wings. He charged forward and flew up into the air. Soaring off into the distance. Karina turned to Henry, visibily upset. She lifted her phone to the sky and disappeared without saying a word. Henry almost did the same but remember Gottsumon was still hiding. He ran over to the tree, Reindeermon following behind.   
“Hey Gottsumon, your safe to come out now. Your cave is empty of any and all terrifying dragons.” Henry laughed. Gottsumon waddled out of the tree with a huge smile.  
“Thanks a BUNCH, Detective! I’ll never forget this! If you ever need a favor, you have my username!” Gottsumon exclaimed, running off back into his cave. Henry brightened up, taking a deep breath, despite his swollen, tear-stained face.  
“Don’t blame yourself, Henry.” Reindeermon consoled him. “If we’re being honest, I'm weak as hell.” Henry turned to her.  
“Then let’s do something about that.” Henry exclaimed with determination.   
Meanwhile, Blossom continued to ride on the back of Aquilamon. The duo flew a great distance until finally happening upon a large desert. Aquilamon dove down and landed onto the hot sand. Blossom jumped off, allowing her partner to revert back into Hawkmon.   
“Hawkmon, I can feel that we’re coming closer to figuring this whole thing out.” She stated.  
“I concur.” The bird added.   
“We’ve been searching for this ‘Hidden Stone’ for months, there can’t be that much desert left to search.” Blossom concluded. “And once we find it, well, we’ll be closer to cracking this case than Mr. Burondo EVER was!”  
“I’m glad to have been along to help you, Partner.” Hawkmon nodded. Blossom clapped her hands together twice, summoning Infomon to burst up from the sand.  
“Yes, Miss Riley?” Infomon asked.  
“Infomon, I need a scan on this area, the largest radius you can reach.” Blossom requested. Infomon nodded and began to float up a bit higher into the sky. A blue light shot from the symbol on Infomon’s forehead. It created a large blue circle of light on the ground, Infomon scanned this area. After a few minutes, she floated slowly back down.  
“Well?” Blossom asked.  
“No irregular activity detected.” Infomon reported. Blossom stamped her foot on the ground in frustration.   
“Shit.” She muttered.  
“Perhaps we should take a break.” Hawkmon suggested. “We’re not getting anywhere.” Blossom’s head snapped to her partner.  
“Excuse me? We’re not done until I say so. Digivolve again and let’s keep going.” Blossom demanded.  
“But-“ Hawkmon retorted.  
“I don’t wanna hear it.” Blossom stated coldly. “We are going to discover the stone, and I will prove to that entitled, spoiled Kazashi that I deserve to take Mr. Burondo’s seat more than she does. I don’t want to hear any more suggestions from you. Do I make myself clear?”  
“Yes ma’am.” Hawkmon mumbled.  
“Now digivolve back into Aquilamon and let’s keep searching.” The woman commanded.  
“Hawkmon digivolve to…”


	4. The Lantern Festival

The next day at Burondo & Associates, tensions were high. Karina was upset that Blossom had embarrassed her, so she refused to talk to anyone. Meanwhile, Blossom continued to pop in and out of the Digital World at random, being gone most of the day. Henry walked into the office with a spring in his step. He’d finally begun to come around to the digimon thing and was excited for another day to learn more about them. He quickly pushed the door open and stepped inside. Niko and Karina were both in their cubicles and looked up to notice him. Karina went immediately back to her computer.  
“Hey Henry! Someone looks happy today.” Niko greeted Henry as he walked in.  
“Hey Niko, hey Karina!” Henry beamed. Karina looked up at him and quickly back down. Henry grimaced. He walked over and stood by Niko’s desk.  
“What’s got you in such a good mood?” Niko asked.  
“Well, I just feel determined.” Henry explained. “I’ve decided to spend today training with Reindeermon to finally help her digivolve.”  
“Nice! You really are dedicated.” Niko praised. “That’s a pretty good thing to have in this line of work.” Karina scowled at him upon hearing this.  
“Thanks! By the way, since I know all of your digimon can already digivolve, would either of you mind helping me out?” Henry asked, hopefully.  
“I’m sorry, I can’t. I have some cases I need to be researching today.” Niko replied. Henry looked up to Karina hopefully, who didn’t even acknowledge him. He turned away awkwardly.  
“Well, I’ll ask Kaz.” Henry sighed. He turned around and walked up to Kaz’s office door, knocking on it.  
“Come iiiiin~” Kaz sang. Henry opened the door and entered. He still could not get used to the sight and smell of that office. He shut the door behind him. “What’s going on, Henry?” Kaz asked in a friendly tone, looking up to the blonde  
“I was hoping you could maybe help me with Reindeermon? I wanted to try to get her to digivolve today, after what happened yesterday.” Henry asked, clasping his hands together, pleading.  
“Hmmm…” Kaz looked down pensively, you could hear the gears turning in her head. She popped up quickly. “Alright! I’ll clear my schedule, Henry. Let’s go!” She pulled her phone out and held it up to the monitor on her desk, quickly transporting to the Digital World. Henry’s eyes widened in surprise and he quickly pulled his phone from his pocket and followed her in.  
The two of them landed in the same small town as they had the first day. However, this time it was bustling with digimon all around it. It looked just like any human village. The digimon were running around setting up booths and stringing lights around the square.  
“Woah! Where was all this last time?” Henry exclaimed. Just then, Reindeermon and Mochimon shot down from the sky in beams of light to join their partners.  
“This place is usually much more quiet, but today they’re preparing for the Lantern Festival!” Mochimon chirped.  
“Wow…” Henry mused. Kaz giggled.  
“You should come back later tonight after work to see the festival! I’m sure the rest of the office will be going. Enjoy a taste of Digimon culture.” Kaz offered. “But right now we’re going to need to find an open space for a training ground, sooo-” Kaz clapped her hands together twice, summoning Infomon from the fountain.  
“Yes, Miss Burondo?” The android asked.  
“Infomon, please take us to an open space we can use for training.” Kaz requested. Infomon nodded, shooting a blinding light from the glowing symbol on her forehead. When the light faded, they were in a new area.  
This area was a large, circular clearing in the center of a huge strawberry patch. The bushes of fruit seemed to go on endlessly, at least Henry couldn’t see anything but strawberries for miles. There was a nice cool breeze blowing the strawberry scent through the air. Henry walked over to a bush and picked a perfectly ripe strawberry.  
“There are strawberries growing in the digital world?” Henry asked, inspecting the tiny fruit. “They smell amazing.”  
“Yeah, I wouldn’t eat those unless you want to lose all your hair and go blind.” Kaz giggles. Roman gasped and tossed the berry into the bushes again, wiping his hand on his pants.  
“This place is beautiful.” Reindeermon remarked.  
“Infomon, can you create a hologram we can spar against?” Kaz asked. Infomon nodded. She waved her hands and a hologram formed that looked just like V-Dramon, but a bit smaller.  
“Is this adequate, Miss Burondo?” Infomon asked.  
“Looks fabulous, Infomon! Thank you!” Kaz responded.  
“To unfreeze it, just say ‘begin’. And if for any reason you need to freeze it again, just say ‘pause’, and it will cease movement. Once it has been defeated it will reappear again back into this spot. Do you need me to repeat any instruction?”  
“Nope. We’re good.” Kaz answered. Infomon nodded and disappeared. The hologram remained static. Kaz turned to Mochimon. “Mochimon here is only an In-Training digimon. Or a second-stage. So in order to demonstrate, we’ll need you to go ahead and digivolve once.” Mochimon nodded.  
“Mochimon digivolve to…” Mochimon exclaimed as her body was encased in white light, which began to change shape. When the light disappeared, a red, robotic looking ladybug digimon stood in her place. “Tentomon!” She finished.  
“Oh wow! Hi Tentomon!” Henry said, fascinated. Tentomon waved back.  
“Alright, so each level of digivolution takes more power to achieve. Therefore, the strength of the bond between you and your digimon partner must be deeper. So to go from a rookie to a champion, YOU need to train alongside Reindeermon.” Kaz explained.  
“So… I have to physically fight EVERY digimon? I don’t want to get eaten!“ Henry began, he was cut off by Kaz laughing.  
“You don’t need to fight it, your job is to survey the battlefield and help your digimon in any way you can, alert her to things she may not know to look out for. You’re a tactician.” Kaz elaborated. She turned to the hologram. “Begin!” she shouted to it. The monster growled and began to charge toward the four of them. “Just watch me.” Kazashi said to Henry. Henry nodded and pulled Reindeermon into him and out of the way. Tentomon looked at Kazashi for instruction.  
“Tentomon… fly between his legs.” Kazashi said to the bug. Tentomon nodded, opening his beetle wings and flying high into the air. As V-Dramon got closer, Tentomon swooped down and through its legs.  
“Electro Shocker!” Tentomon yelled. The hologram looked confused, and slowly turned around, but was caught off guard by Tentomon shooting a beam of electricity. The monster shrieked in response to the shock.  
“I wouldn’t have thought of that.” Henry said to himself.  
“At least take him to dinner first before you dive straight between the legs.” Reindeermon laughed. The hologram went for a swipe with its claw, but Tentomon quickly zoomed out of the way.  
“Ok, Tentomon! It’s time!” Kaz called to her partner, holding out her phone. Tentomon whipped past V-Dramon one more time, before beginning to digivolve again.  
“Tentomon digivolve to…” Her shape grew bigger and bigger, quickly dwarfing V-Dramon in size. When the light disappeared, a larger, pink ladybug digimon was in her place. She had two sets of arms and was encased in an armor-like outer shell. She had even larger bug wings keeping her aloft. She landed on the ground with a slam. “LadyKabuterimon!” The digimon exclaimed.  
“Holy shit! She’s huge!” Henry yelled in shock. LadyKabuterimon quickly wrestled V-Dramon to the ground with her top two arms. She pulled back a third arm, winding up for an attack.  
“Lucky Hammer!” LadyKabuterimon shouted, slamming her glowing pink fist into the hologram’s side. The blow caused the hologram to burst into a flurry of data and fade into thin air. A second hologram appeared, frozen in the spot where the first one had begun. Henry clapped for the feat of strength LadyKabuterimon had demonstrated.  
“There you go!” Kaz beamed. LadyKabuterimon reverted back to little Mochimon again and bounced over to Kaz. “Alright, now you! Read the situation and instruct Reindeermon accordingly.” Henry took a deep breath and looked to Reindeermon.  
“Don’t fuck me over, champ.” Reindeermon assured Henry. Henry nodded.  
“Okay…begin!” Henry shouted. The hologram began once again, charging forward. “Okay, Reindeermon. Meet him in the middle and do your little icicle thing to make a barrier.” Reindeermon pondered the direction a bit before turning toward the hologram and charging towards it.  
“Sub-Zero Slam!” Reindeermon shouted, slamming her hooves into the ground. Large icicle spikes formed up from the ground, just as expected. They created a small wall in front of Reindeermon. V-Dramon continued running forward. The large digimon didn’t even pay any mind to the icicles, shattering them easily by walking through them.  
“What?” Henry flinched. His heart began to race as he started to panic. Kaz looked at him worriedly.  
“Are you gonna give me another suggestion here, Boss?” Reindeermon screeched as she ran away from V-Dramon as he clawed at her. Henry was unsure of what to do. His gaze darted over to Kaz. Kaz made a gesture for him to keep going.  
“Uhhhh- Let it try to claw you… and then stab it with another icicle?” Henry said, sounding unsure.  
“Okay!” Reindeermon answered. She stopped in place. “Go for a swing, big guy!” V-Dramon roared and swung its claw forward. When he got close to the little digimon, Reindeermon slammed her hooves onto the ground again, stabbing its hand with an icicle.  
“Awesome!” Henry exclaimed as the hologram groaned and pulled back its hand in pain. But the victory didn’t last long as V-dramon just slammed his other hand into Reindeermon, pinning it to the ground. “Oh shit-“  
Reindeermon was screaming as V-Dramon reared its claw back, preparing to strike. Henry looked at Kaz with panic in his eyes. Kaz sighed.  
“Pause.” She said. V-Dramon quickly froze. Reindeermon wriggled her way out from under V-Dramon’s hand and sighed in relief. “Henry. If your ideas fail, it’s okay. But you can’t panic because your digimon will be in a vulnerable position. This is where you need to help even more.” Henry looked down at his feet. He really felt defeated. Kaz walked closer to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s give it a break, alright? The rest of us at B&A have been training with our digimon for a while. This is your third day. We make it look easy, but believe me, we all were as clueless as you at first. And it’s great you’re so determined to put in the work, because this is how you make real progress. Let’s go.” The two of them lifted their phones to the sky and returned back to their world.  
The rest of the workday Henry spent copying papers and running errands. But he couldn’t stop thinking about his situation. How long would it take to digivolve? What could Reindeermon’s champion form look like? Would it be big and tough like LadyKabuterimon? Or fast and agile like Kiwimon? These thoughts continued racing through Henry’s mind as he walked back to his apartment at the end of the day.  
Henry walked into his small apartment and was greeted by his roommates sitting together on the couch. Roman, a tall, skinny man with bleach blonde hair who was a junior, lounged back and watched Ben, who was short and chubby with dark hair, play some gritty first-person video game on their TV. Roman turned when Henry entered.  
“What’s up, Sherlock?” Roman jokingly greeted Henry. Henry laughed.  
“What game is this? Is this new?” Henry asked, pointing to the screen.  
“It’s the new Digital World game.” Ben answered quickly. Henry gasped at the name.  
“Is everything okay?” Roman asked. Henry opened his mouth, but he was cut off by Ben suddenly shouting. His character was killed by a creepy black robot on screen, causing the two boys to groan in frustration.  
“Dude. This boss battle is, like, impossible.” Roman huffed.  
“The internet SAID that all i needed to do to beat The Black Star was to get the Twin Revolvers. But it’s NOT working AT ALL!” Ben exclaimed, restarting the boss fight. Henry huffed, but then chuckled. That must have been the game that kept showing up when he googled about the Digital World.  
“Hey, I’ll be in my room if you need me.” Henry said walking off to his room. He shut the door and took off his work shirt , just wearing his grey, sleeveless undershirt. He stretched his arms, sitting down into his rolling desk chair and pulling out his phone, Digivice still attached. Henry stared at the little device and marveled at how something so simple and small could do such amazing things. Suddenly, a chime sounded through his phone speakers, notifying him to a text message from Reindeermon again.  
“Hey shithead if ur still coming to the lantern fest you better get ur ass over here bc it’s starting rlly soon” The message said. Henry got up.  
“On my way now!” Henry texted back. He grabbed a jacket and pointed his phone to the monitor of his cheap, old laptop, which sat open on his desk. As usual, he disappeared in a flash of light.  
When Henry arrived, he was shocked to see that there was no longer that blue summer sky he had just walked home underneath, but the sun was already setting in the Digital World. The sky was a brilliant gallimaufry of oranges, purples, and pinks. It looked more gorgeous than any sunset Henry had seen in the human world. The festival scene beneath it all was also quite beautiful. Many multicolored lanterns floated about, casting vivid shadows onto the ground, making the brick roads of the village look like kaleidoscopes. Digimon behind vendor’s stands sold concessions to other digimon, making the air smell like deliciously cooked meat and vegetables. The middle of the road through the town was cleared of crowds, it was obvious that a parade would be coming through.  
Henry was quickly able to spot Niko and Kaz, as the only two humans there. They were with their digimon partners, as well as Kiwimon and Reindeermon. Henry waved at them and ran up to meet them.  
“Hey Henry!” Kaz and Niko said. Henry smiled at them. He turned to Kiwimon.  
“You’re here without Karina?” Henry asked the digimon. Kiwimon rolled her eyes in frustration.  
“She and I planned on going, but she backed out after the fight with V-Dramon ruined her mood.” The bird explained. Henry nodded.  
“What a drama queen.” Reindeermon remarked.  
“Hey! That’s better than being a literal outlaw, Furball!” Kiwimon squawked.  
“I’m not an outlaw, Big Bird, I’m just in an astronomical amount of debt!” Reindeermon sassed. Kiwimon scoffed. Kaz put a hand on the digimon’s head.  
“Let’s just try to enjoy the evening, alright?” She said. The two digimon grunted and turned away from each other. There was the sound of a bell in the distance.  
“The parade is starting!” Niko remarked, pointing down the street. Keramon clapped his large hands in excitement.  
Down the center of the street marched the parade procession. It was led by a group of lizard digimon with brass horns around their necks that appeared to be playing themselves. They sounded like a marching band, but the music was very off-key and sounded uncomfortable to the human ear. However, the digimon around the sides of the parade were clapping along. There was something amusing about the contrast of the gorgeous festival scene and the painful parade music that made Henry giggle in delight.  
Behind the band was a group of digimon carrying large sticks with lanterns on the end. These digimon were not all the same species as the first few had been. But the shocking part of the parade was the herd of little green slug digimon behind the lantern-bearers. The slugs were holding up a giant, ornate paper-mache bird. The bird was mostly bright yellow, with a gold-plated helmet on top and two sets of wings. Henry deduced it must be an ancient digimon.  
All the onlookers clapped for the sculpture as it passed by. Behind the bird were more lantern bearers. And as they passed, the parade ended. Henry sighed. What a strange life he had. They all continued to clap. Once things had calmed down Kaz turned to the group.  
“I think it’s about time to eat!” She sang, clapping her hands together. Niko and the digimon cheered in excitement. Kaz led the group over to a vendor’s booth with a little purple digimon that looked like a mushroom behind it.  
“Hello Mushmon!” Kaz greeted it.  
“Hello friend! Would you like a fried mushroom surprise?” Mushmon asked in a scratchy little voice.  
“Is it actually edible?” Henry murmured. As Kaz chatted with Mushmon, Henry kept looking around at the beautiful scene. The sun was slowly setting more and more and the dark sky made the lanterns appear to shine even brighter. Henry looked around at the beautiful wilderness outside the town too. The village was surrounded by forest in every direction, but plants in this forest were unlike any forest in his world. Henry continued looking around the forest until he saw something shocking that he had not anticipated he would ever see.  
Standing at the edge of a forest staring directly back at him was a human girl. She had long, messy dark hair, tan skin, and a white dress. She was completely barefoot. The second the two of them made eye contact the girl’s eyes widened like she had seen a ghost and she fled into the forest. Henry looked at Kaz, who was still talking to the vendor. He was under the impression that B&A were the only humans who knew about the Digital World. He had an overwhelming instinct to go into the forest and find the mysterious girl. So he looked back at the forest entrance and made a run for it.  
“Yer little skinny friend is gettin’ away, lady!” Mushmon exclaimed, pointing at Henry. Kaz and Niko turned around.  
“Henry where are you going?” Niko shouted in a worried tone.  
“Don’t follow me, I’ll be right back!” Henry yelled in response. Reindeermon looked up longingly at the Fried Mushroom Surprise that Mushmon handed to Kaz.  
“Goddamn it. Henry owes me food.” Reindeermon groaned, galloping after her partner.  
As Henry pushed past the foliage in the forest, he could see the girl still in the distance, standing in a small clearing. Next to her was a large, menacing digimon that appeared robotic. The girl turned around and saw Henry running towards her, but she just stood still and waited. The large digimon stepped out in front of her as a bodyguard would. Henry finally caught up to the two, but stayed a safe distance away from the Digimon.  
The digimon was at least 7 or 8 feet tall. It was fully made of metal, except for the great hood it had pulled up around its head, which appeared like a skull with large devil horns, fully made of gold. One of its arms was a large claw, while the other appeared to be a golden sickle. It looked like the Grim Reaper. Reindeermon caught up to Henry, and let out a small yelp of surprise upon seeing the creepy digimon and the human girl behind him.  
“Do not come any closer, Human.” The digimon said in a deep, gritty voice. Henry nodded and gulped. “What is your business here?”  
“I-I just saw you and had to follow you.” Henry stammered. “I didn’t know there were others…” The girl looked at Henry blankly. He looked back at her. “Who are you?” The girl put a hand on the large digimon’s arm in order to calm him down. He looked at her and nodded, getting out of her way. She stepped forward, up close to Henry. The two just stared at each other. Her eyes were a beautiful shade of brown, honestly everything about her was ethereal and mesmerizing. Henry was usually quite hard on personal space, but he didn’t even mind letting this girl be so close.  
“Noa.” She said. There was a bout of silence. Henry furrowed his brow. “Noa is my name.” She explained. Her voice was slightly hoarse. Henry nodded.  
“I-I’m Henry.” He stuttered. Noa smiled at him, which means he couldn’t help but smile back. “What are you doing here?”  
“I live here.” Noa explained. “This is my home.” She gestured to the surrounding forest. “Where do YOU live?”  
“The human world. Earth?” Henry said. Noa looked confused. “I didn’t think humans exist here…”  
“They DON’T!” Reindeermon chimed in. The big, robotic digimon glared at her, causing her to flinch. “There’s no way you are from here! Humans don’t hatch out of eggs or reincarnate the second they die! There’s no baby human eggs at the Nursury.”  
“Yeah… you don’t have parents?” Henry added. Noa looked back and forth between Henry and Reindeermon.  
“Pa...rents…?” She muttered. She appeared lost in thought, like even she was trying to put together the puzzle pieces. Her digimon partner stepped up and rested his large claw hand on Noa’s shoulder.  
“Noa, we must be going. The rest of the group will be worried if you are gone for too long.” He said.  
“Group? More humans?” Henry asked.  
“No. I’m the only human.” Noa explained. The large digimon made a gesture for Noa to leave with him. She nodded. “Henry, I hope we can chat again soon. I’ve never known anyone else like me here.” Noa and the digimon went off and disappeared into the forest. Henry stared off blankly.  
“That was… strange. You humans really do attract a lot of drama.” Reindeermon muttered.  
“Yeah.” Henry agreed. He turned away and walked back to the festival with Reindeermon.  
After a fun night of eating and partying with the digimon, Henry finally decided to say goodbye and return home. Holding his phone up to the sky, he disappeared in a flash of blinding light.  
When Henry arrived back at his bedroom, he sighed, looking down at his feet. There were so many questions left unanswered that were running through his mind about that encounter. He was so lost in thought that he didn’t notice his roommate Roman, who had opened the door just in time to see Henry appear out of his laptop. His mouth was agape.  
“H-HENRY!?” Roman shouted. Henry darted up, his eyes meeting the shocked ones of his roommate.  
“Oh shit.” He mumbled.


	5. The Nursery

Niko was always the first into the office, after Kaz of course. He enjoyed the quiet half hour of alone time he had, to work while Kaz was in her office. But today, his brain wasn’t in its usual place. He could hardly get any work done as he couldn’t stop thinking about Karina.   
Niko and Karina had been best friends for so long and she didn’t usually get upset like she had been recently. He was genuinely worried for her. Niko respected Blossom, but maybe she was a bit too hard on Karina.   
Niko was pulled out of his trance by Karina walking into the office. She sighed and sat her stuff down in her cubicle, without saying a word. She quickly left the room by connect-jumping into her computer. Blossom came in and eventually did the same. Looked like Niko would be alone again. At least until Henry showed up. But he was definitely not prepared for when he did.  
Kaz has walked out of her office and was on her way to the breakroom when Henry walked in. He was a bit later than usual, but they weren’t too strict on him showing up on time. The shocking part of it was, though, that Henry was followed. Behind him were two boys that Niko and Kaz didn’t recognize, but they appeared around Henry’s age. Kaz and Niko looked at each other and then back again.  
“Um… Hello Henry.” Kaz said, walking up to him. “Who are your friends? Do they have a case?” Henry looked extremely upset.  
“KAZ I AM SO SORRY I DIDN’T MEAN FOR THEM TO FIND OUT BUT THEY SAW ME LEAVE THE DIGITAL WORLD AND I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO DO SO I BROUGHT THEM HERE-“ Henry went off on an extremely fast nervous rant before Kaz put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. He looked up, almost in tears.  
“It’s fine. Accidents happen. Let’s just have them sign the NDA.” She looked at the two boys with a smile. “Hello! Roommates of Henry?”  
“That’s us. I’m Roman Read.” Roman said.  
“And I’m Ben Yablonsky.” Ben added. Kaz nodded, snapping her fingers, Niko got up and dashed into Kaz’s office, bringing the NDA packets out and handing one to both boys, and brought them a pen. They signed the NDAs quickly and handed them back to Niko.  
“Look bruh, we won’t tell anybody this badass secret but we just want to see it for ourselves!” Ben exclaimed.   
“We BEGGED Henry to let us come. Is that alright with you, Ma’am?” Roman asked. Kaz laughed.  
“Ma’am? I like this one.” She looked over to Niko. “I don’t see why not. I’m a bit busy today though, and Niko usually goes into the digital world the first Thursday of every month to check in with the Nursery during Hatching Day. Why don’t you go a bit early and take these three with you on a field trip?” Niko looked up and gave an unenthusiastic forced grin. Kaz went off to her office as Niko walked the boys to his cubicle computer.   
“Ok so we’re about to go in. Are you ready?” Niko asked them. Roman and Ben nodded. Niko grabbed Ben’s arm and Henry grabbed Roman’s. The two detectives held their phones up to their screen and transported themselves into the digital world.  
Once their eyes were adjusted from the bright light they saw that they were now in a new area. Henry hadn’t encountered this spot in the Digital World before, but he had heard of it. This was the Digimon Nursery. A long field that almost looked like a farm, but where the crops were large, multicolored Digimon Eggs. Reindeermon and Keramon were summoned down from the sky. Roman jumped when he saw them, but Ben looked up close to Keramon with a smile.  
“This is a digimon? So cool! It looks like a baby space alien!” Ben noted. Keramon smiled back at him.   
“So this is the nursery huh?” Henry said. Niko nodded. Near the group was a very small, pink hut, that looked like a house that would be overseeing a farm. The door to the hut opened and a rather large, white, bipedal cat digimon walked out, it had clearly just woken up. It’s eyes widened to see Niko.  
“Niko? We weren’t expecting to see you here this early!” The digimon walked up to the man, speaking with the voice of an older woman. Her tail was almost twice the size of her body and had a small golden ring hanging off of it.   
“Good morning, Tailmon. It’s always good to see you.” Niko said to the little digimon. “I brought some friends to help out with some work today.” He turned to the college kids. They all looked at eachother.  
“Work? What work?” Ben asked.  
“Every month the Digi-Eggs all hatch at once and my nurses and I all take care of the new babies. It only takes them a few days before they digivolve into In-Training Digimon and can go off into the world on their own.” Tailmon explained.   
“The first day is always the hardest, so I help around, doing things like running errands, cleaning old egg-shells, and helping calm the babies.” Niko said. “So that’s what you all are doing today!” Reindeermon groaned.  
“I am NOT doing that labor. I never wanted kids.” Reindeermon said.  
“If we have to do this, so do you!” Henry said. Reindeermon rolled her eyes.   
“This sounds so awesome!” Roman cheered. Niko looked at him and furrowed his brows. “Hatching a bunch of alien babies? Bro that’s like, so cool!” He explained optimistically.   
“TOTALLY!” Ben agreed. Henry laughed at his two roommates. Tailmon smiled at their enthusiasm, turning to Niko again.  
“Thanks for the extra helping paws, but you know the eggs don’t hatch until sunset. Why are you here so early today?” Tailmon asked.   
“Well, these two haven’t even been in the Digital World before.” Niko said, gesturing to Roman and Ben. “So I guess it’s my job to show them around.”  
“Oh! Well in that case, welcome!” Tailmon said, outstretching a paw to shake the humans’ hands. “Why don’t you come inside and enjoy a nice, hot breakfast with my nurses?”   
“What do digimon eat?” Roman asked Henry.  
“Some of the same things we eat. Just more magical.” Henry answered. Tailmon nodded, leading the group into the tiny hut. However, the inside of the hut was absolutely enormous, like a beautiful fairytale cottage. There was a small dining table with at least 12 little pink digimon of the same species sitting around it.  
“Hello Nurses! Please welcome our guests! Niko, Keramon, and…” Tailmon looked at the rest of the group for them to introduce themselves.  
“I’m Henry, and this is Reindeermon.” Henry said in a soft voice.   
“I’m Roman.” Roman added.  
“And I’m Ben! Cute place you got here!” Ben finished. Tailmon laughed.  
“Nurses please say hi!” Tailmon told the Nurses. She walked off to the Kitchen to continue cooking as they went around the table. The humans and their digimon all grabbed a seat around the table.   
“I’m Tokomon!” The first said.  
“My name is Tokomon!” Said the next.  
“I am also Tokomon!” Added another. All 12 then added that they were also Tokomon. It took so long that once they were done, Tailmon had brought out the food. A few large loaves of bread and a pot of soup. Everyone fixed themself some and began enjoying the food.  
The Tokomons all ate a lot of food in a short amount of time, revealing their terrifyingly large set of sharp teeth. The humans let out a gasp at the sight. Tailmon giggled, licking hers up like a cat would. The group had a friendly dinner conversation, filled with curious questions from Roman.  
“So Digimon don’t die?” Roman asked Henry, in the middle of their dinner conversation.  
“They do, but they show up back here as eggs.” Niko answered for him. “They grow out of the ground like plants. It’s really cool. Almost every digimon you see has been around the same amount of time as the beginning of the digital world, and have gone through many past lives.”  
“Do they remember their past lives?” Roman asked.  
“You are asking WAY too many questions, man, we’re in a parallel universe right now! Eating parallel universe food!” Ben said to his friend.  
“I guess you’re right.” Roman said, looking off in thought. Tailmon finished her food and quickly got up.  
“I need to go supervise the eggs now, so once you guys are done, feel free to join me!” She told the group. They all nodded, continuing to eat the delicious soup. Suddenly they heard a crash, and the sound of Tailmon screaming. Niko looked at Henry, with a worried glance. The two detectives and their digimon ran out, followed by Roman, Ben, and the herd of Tokomon.   
A little silver digimon piloting a floating machine with two large arms on either side had almost every egg in its grasp, and it was trying to make off with them, but Tailmon was holding it down.  
“YOU STOP IT, CATCHMAMEMON! THESE EGGS ARENT YOURS!” Tailmon shouted.  
“THE BABIES ARE MINE! MINE! MINE!” CatchMamemon replied, spinning around and flinging Tailmon off.  
“Oh god, that guy is weird.” Henry said. “Reindeermon! Go help!” He demanded.  
“You too, Keramon!” Niko added. The two rookie-levels zoomed up to the scene to help and try to stop CatchMamemon. Keramon, who could float, flew up to CatchMamemon’s small actual body, piloting the robot arms.  
“Bug Blaster!” Keramon shouted, shooting a beam of light from its mouth, almost knocking CatchMamemon back, but the evil digimon managed to hang on to the controls of the robot. But the robot did jerk back, dropping some of the eggs, which Reindeermon ran up to catch on its back and set down gently.  
“Miracle Bomb!” CatchMamemon exclaimed, the little panels on the front of the machine displayed three “Lucky Sevens”, like a slot machine. “Looks like it’s your UNLUCKY DAY!” the digimon giggled, as the bottom of the machine opened up to launch 3 homing missiles to Keramon and Tailmon. The two digimon were knocked into the ground.  
“Oh shit!” Ben exclaimed. Niko grunted, holding out his phone and digivice to Keramon.  
“Keramon! It’s time to digivolve!” Niko shouted. The virus digimon got up and began to glow with white light.  
“Keramon digivolve to…” The digimons white form was suddenly hardened into a large, purple shell like a cocoon. Six tentacle-like legs burst out of the shell, along with a large red horn. “Chrysalimon!”   
Chrysalimon zoomed up and it’s tentacles wrapped around the mechanical body of CatchMamemon, lifting him higher and higher up into the sky. Eggs were raining down. The humans and Tokomons ran forward to catch all the falling eggs. All the eggs were safe except for two, the one Roman caught and the one Ben caught. The fall caused large cracks to form, they began to spread across both eggs.  
“OH SHIT!” The two roommates said, looking at each other.  
“It’s okay, they were about to hatch, you just started them a little early.” Niko reassured them. They both let out a relieved sigh. The eggs hatched into two little digimon. Ben’s was red, with three large bumps on its head, Roman’s was furry and black, with little ears and large beady, yellow eyes.  
“Awwww” The two of them said in unison.  
Back with Chrysalimon, it sent flying CatchMamemon hard down towards the ground, where Reindeermon sent an Icicle spear up, stabbing throught the main body of the machine. The little digimon pilot screamed, trying to get his machine off of the spear.  
“Get me out of here!” CatchMamemon exclaimed. Tailmon walked up to the digimon, with its arms crossed.  
“I’ll help you get out, CatchMamemon. If you promise never to come back here again.” The nursery digimon said. CatchMamemon groaned.  
“Fine! Just help!” The ultimate-level responded. Reindeermon, Tailmon, and Chrysalimon worked together to lift the large machine off of the icicle spear. Once he was off, CatchMamemon flew away, the engine of his machine sputtering and spitting out gas as he did so, due to being stabbed by a giant icicle. The Tokomon all cheered for the group.  
The rest of the day was spent in the Nursery, talking and hanging out. Roman and Ben continued to hold onto their new baby digimon friends. Eventually the sun began to set, and all the nurses and humans waited with baited breath for the eggs to hatch. And suddenly, in random orders, they all began to. Many baby digimon of different colors and sizes all burst out of the Digi-Eggs. The Tokomons all jumped up and quickly carried the babies to a nearby pond to wash them. Niko, Tailmon, and the rest of the group cleaned up the egg shells that were left behind. Chrysalimon was quickly able to clean up, using his tentacles.  
After hours of work, The humans said goodbye to Tailmon and the nurses, and Ben had a very heartfelt goodbye with Bobby, which was the nickname he had given the Punimon he accidentally hatched. The group went on their way back to the human world. After a flash of light, they were back again. In the same old off B&A. It was dark and empty, except for Kaz, who seemed to be gathering her things to leave for the day.   
“Welcome back! Did you all have fun?” Kaz said to the group of young men.  
“Thawuzz amazing…” Ben muttered, acting quite loopy. Henry had to keep him from falling down.   
“I fee’ kin’ tired…” Roman added. Kaz laughed.  
“That’s Digi-Jetlag, you get used to it” She laughed. Suddenly, a strange portal opened up on the ceiling, and down through it fell the Botamon that Roman had hatched, and Bobby the Punimon. Everyone in the room appeared shocked.  
“Did those digimon just… come here on their own?” Niko exclaimed as the two baby digimon jumped into their friend’s arms.  
“Th-They can do that?” Henry said worriedly.  
“I guess they must have wanted to see Roman and Ben so bad that they just… appeared.” Niko muttered. “This has a lot of not-so-good implications.”  
The two boys were so out of it that they didn’t even seem worried about the digimon, they were just happy to cuddle with them again. Kaz smiled.  
“That sounds like an issue for tomorrow. For now, Ben and Roman, congratulations on meeting your new digimon partners! Treat these babies well!” The blonde woman laughed.  
“Ok, George Washington, But I think there might be sumthin wrong wit’ my plant it look like it has furrrr…” Roman drooled, poking Botamon.   
“Ok guys, let’s get you home…” Henry said, leading his two roommates out of the building and back home. Niko still looked upset.  
“Niko, it’s okay. This problem has never occurred before so I’m sure it’s just a rare occurrence. It can certainly wait til tomorrow.” Kaz assured him.  
“Alright. See you then, Kaz.” Niko sighed, gathering his things and walking out as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Sorry that I didn’t post a new chapter last week, but because of the current circumstances and online school I had a lot on my plate. Look forward to Chapter 6 hopefully coming this week!


	6. Rangimon

Aquilamon landed in front of a large well in the middle of the desert. The well was not filled with water, but appeared to be a tunnel, as there was a ladder on the side that one could climb down on. Blossom stepped off of her partner’s back.  
“Finally! This must be it. According to my research, if there is a precious stone to be found, it’s down here. Aquilamon, de-digivolve into Hawkmon so we can climb down. But be alert, as we don’t know what may be down there.” Blossom ordered the bird digimon. Aquilamon nodded and transformed back into Hawkmon. The red bird grabbed onto Blossom's shoulders as she began climbing down the tunnel.  
“Apparently this tunnel leads to a horde of treasure that used to belong to a fearsome draconic digimon.” Blossom grunted, climbing down the ladder. “Gold, Jewels, Stones, this is the perfect spot to search for the hidden stone.”  
“Wh-What happened to the digimon?” Hawkmon asked, a slight tremble to his voice.  
“Calm down. It should be long dead by now.” Blossom reassured her partner. She handed him her phone to hold, with the flashlight on, as it was getting dark in the tunnel. Eventually, after a long time of straight climbing, there was a distant light. Blossom dropped down from the ladder and finally hit solid ground.  
The light was coming from lit torches, beckoning the two of them forward through yet another tunnel. Hawkmon handed Blossom back her phone and jumped off her shoulders to fly next to her. Deeper and deeper they walked into the tunnel. Eventually there was a fork in the tunnel.  
“I wouldn’t be surprised if the wrong path leads to a trap.” Blossom said. “Of course trying to find a mythical treasure horde isn’t going to be easy. But which path could be the correct one?” Hawkmon flew a bit closer to the tunnels.  
“Maybe the prophecy says something about it?” Hawkmon suggested. Blossom nodded, clapping twice to summon Infomon.  
“Hello, Miss Riley. How may I help?” The robotic digimon asked.  
“Please reread the document filed under Exhibit A of Ichiro Burondo on his “Black Star” case from December 2002.” Blossom ordered the digimon. The digimon nodded, projecting the document from the light on her forehead.

_(Translated from Digicode)  
Where the wind blows through sandy heat,  
Deep beneath your feet,  
The hidden stone stayed hiding here and waits for us to meet,  
Through dark and light,  
Through hot and bright,  
You’ll know in your heart which road is right,  
To lead you to the final fight,  
For the worlds combined to face defeat,  
The Black Star with the weakest roar,  
Leads twelve ancient spirits to our final war,  
And once it’s hard to fight anymore,  
And the battle ends and evil wins,  
Our fate is in the hands of twins,  
To close this final door._

“Any ideas?” Hawkmon asked. Blossom seemed deep in thought. Her eyes widened.  
“You’ll know in your heart which road is right… So the right path?” Blossom said walking over to the tunnel that was literally on the right-hand side.  
“Ingenius! Good job detective! Very smart!” Hawkmon praised. Blossom made a motion for Hawkmon to shut up and follow her. Infomon disappeared.  
The detective and her partner walked deeper into the cave. After a while they had finally found it. Before them was a vast room, the walls lined with torches. The room was filled with gold and riches, so much so that the pills looked like large hills. However, the most eye catching thing in this room was the gigantic dragon skeleton in the center of the room. The skeleton was pretty clean, Blossom deduced that the digimon must have died a long time ago, there was no trace of flesh or blood left on it.  
“Well, this could take a lot of digging through all this treasure to find this hidden stone. This could take a very very long time.” Hawkmon notes. Blossom rushed forward.  
“Well then, we better get started!” She said. The bird caught up to his partner as they approached a smaller pile of treasure. Blossom immediately dove into it and began digging through the gold. Hawkmon joined in, flying to the top and using his talons to dig through the gold.  
After a while, there was a sudden sound of wind blowing, Blossom got out of the pile and turned around. Black smoke began quickly whirling around the digimon skeleton, and it began to violently shake, rising up into the air. Suddenly the skeleton absorbed all of the smoke into its body and two red, glowing eyes appeared in its eye sockets. It turned to face Blossom and Hawkmon.  
“That’s not a dead digimon, it’s SkullBaluchimon!” Hawkmon screamed. SkullBaluchimon roared a deafening roar. Blossom quickly looked up to Hawkmon. “We’re going to have to fight this thing, huh?” Blossom nodded.  
Hawkmon quickly digivolve to Aquilamon and took off, zooming around the much larger digimon.  
“BLAST LASER!” Aquilamon squawked, shooting rings of fire from its beak towards the enormous digimon’s face. SkullBaluchimon roared, rearing back its head. Once it had shaken off the blow, it was able to quickly slam its giant claw into Aquilamon, pinning the bird to the ground. Aquilamon was just barely bigger than SkullBaluchimon’s enormous hand, so it couldn’t get free.  
“Shit. I need backup.” Blossom pulled out her digivice and immediately began contacting Niko for help.  
Back at the office, the bespectacled man was doing research for a minor case when he got the urgent notification from Blossom. Karina and Henry were both in the room with him, Niko looked up.  
“Karina! Blossom is in trouble! I need to send you to her right now. We don’t have the time to talk so get over here.” Niko exclaimed. Karina looked worried but did as she was told. Niko pulled up Blossom’s location and Karina connect-jumped into it.  
“You too, Henry! She needs all the help she can get.” Niko said to the intern. Henry turned around.  
“B-but Niko, Reindeermon can’t even digivolve yet!” Henry argued.  
“She seemed to hold her own pretty well back with CatchMamemon. Just come on.” Niko demanded. Henry dropped the files he was holding and also walked over to Niko’s cubicle, connect-jumping into it.  
The two of them appeared in the desert next to the tunnel entrance. Reindeermon and Floramon followed shortly after.  
“They must be down there.” Karina noted. Henry nodded in agreement. The pink-haired girl took off her heels and began climbing down. Henry reluctantly followed. Eventually they were down to the tunnels and the fork in the paths. Loud roars and squawks were coming in the direction of the right tunnel, so the foursome went down that path.  
Eventually they came upon the terrifying scene. Aquilamon has managed to wriggle free but was clearly injured, just trying to dodge SkullBaluchimon. Blossom was hiding behind a large pile of gold. Karina and Henry ran over to her.  
“What is going on? Where are we?” Henry asked nervously.  
“I’m just investigating some really old case. But we don’t need to worry about that now.” Blossom said. “Please just help.” Karina crossed her arms.  
“I would help, but I’m not grown up enough.” Karina scoffed. Henry and Reindeermon looked at each other worriedly. Aquilamon let out another scream as he got slammed into a pile of gold by SkullBaluchimon’s tail.  
“Now is not the time for this!” Blossom shouted to the younger woman.  
“You are supposed to be the strong one who can handle everything on her own! I don’t know why you even asked for backup.” Karina grunted.  
“Look- I’m sorry for pissing you off, but you are still in the wrong for putting everyone in danger like you did and like you are now!” Blossom scolded.  
“I never meant to put anyone in danger! I just wanted to be a strong and cool mentor for Henry, like you always have been for me. But I’m just not good enough, am I?” Karina began to tear up. Blossom put a hand on her shoulder.  
“I know. It’s okay. But please, Aquilamon is getting hurt.” The redhead said. Karina nodded and pulled away.  
“Let’s do this Floramon.” Karina said to the plant digimon. Floramon digivolved into Kiwimon and rushed out, Reindeermon in tow. Kiwimon managed to cause an explosion using her ‘Lil Peckers’ attack, distracting SkullBaluchimon long enough for Aquilamon to get up again.  
“Hey asshole!” Reindeermon yelled. SkullBaluchimon turned to the mammal digimon as she used her SubZero slam to stab a large icicle up through it’s claw, shattering some of the bone and causing SkullBaluchimon to screech in pain. Aquilamon swooped in, also managing to shatter pieces of bone in SkullBaluchimon’s massive wings.  
“We’ve totally got him!” Karina cheered. SkullBaluchimon was clearly weakened. It seemed like they were winning. Emphasis on seemed. More black smoke appeared, lifting the pieces of shattered bone up and putting them back into place. The detectives all looked at eachother.  
“Did it just heal itself?” Henry whimpered.  
“Yup.” Blossom responded. SkullBaluchimon let out another, even angrier roar. “We might be fucked.”  
“We need more help. Maybe Kaz and LadyKabuterimon-“ Henry started.  
“NO!” Blossom exclaimed. Her voice echoed throughout the room. Henry’s eyes widened as SkullBaluchimon turned to the three, beginning to stomp over towards the gold pile they were hiding behind.  
The digimon swiped the gold away, making the three humans clearly visible. The digimon growled, opening its large, gaping jaw upon seeing them. Karina and Blossom ran quickly, but Henry remained frozen, panicking as he did before with V-Dramon.  
“Henry!” Karina shouted. “Run!” But Henry remained frozen in place. Reindeermon looked at Henry and SkullBaluchimon.  
“Fuck. If I wasn’t just a rookie I could DO something. Now my partner’s gonna die.” Reindeermon muttered. “No… my FRIEND’s gonna die.” As she said this, her body began to glow with a white light. Henry looked over, his eyes widening at what was happening. “REINDEERMON DIGIVOLVE TO…”  
Reindeermon’s form began to grow until the digimon was a much different shape. Her legs were much longer, the armor on her hind legs grew a wing-like shape. Reindeermon’s small antlers grew into much larger and more majestic ones, and a single icicle-like horn protruded out from the center of her forehead. The light dissipated from the digimon’s body and what was left standing was the most graceful digimon Henry had seen yet.  
“Rangimon!” She exclaimed. The digimon suddenly took off flying at high speeds through the air. She landed in front of Henry. “Henry, get on my back!” She demanded. Henry hopped onto her back like a horse. She took off. Again. The distraction gave Kiwimon enough time to deploy more ‘Lil Pecker’ bombs. Rangimon let Henry off next to Karina and Blossom and returned to the fight.  
“Icicle Rocket!” Rangimon exclaimed, shooting off her horn towards SkullBaluchimon’s face. The skeleton digimon didn’t have the time to react as it was hit. That’s when another blow was struck by Aquilamon, blasting through the beast’s rib cage. The digimon was knocked down onto its side, still roaring.  
Slowly, the digimon’s bones began to fade away into ash, starting at the tip of its tail. When the last of its body was now a pile of black ash, the three humans looked at each other.  
“Well. That sure was crazy.” Karina laughed. The digimon returned to their partners, de-digivolving into their rookie forms. Reindeermon jumped into Henry’s arms excitedly.  
“We did it! We beat it! I digivolved!” Reindeermon exclaimed. Henry eventually let the little digimon go and looked up to his coworkers.  
“Shall we go back to the office?” He suggested. Karina nodded but Blossom turned back to the piles of gold.  
“You guys can go on ahead, I need to finish what I started here.” Blossom said. Hawkmon sighed and walked over to his partner. Karina shrugged and began leaving.  
“Suit yourself.” She said, skipping away. Henry lingered for a bit, but followed Karina out of the room.  
“That was nice, what you said to Karina.” Hawkmon noted.  
“You heard that?” Blossom asked.  
Back at the office, Niko was happy to see Karina back to her old self. She had to talk his and Henry’s heads off about things she didn’t get the chance to over the past few days. Finishing off that work week on a nice note. Henry was happy to get home that day and end the craziest week of his entire life. But he wasn’t prepared for what would be waiting for him.  
Henry opened the door to his apartment and was greeted by two new roommates, Koromon and Tunomon, sitting on the couch next to Ben and Roman as they played their video game.  
“Nice to see these two are doing well!” Henry joked. Koromon bounced up and down excitedly upon seeing Henry. Roman got up and held the pink digimon in his arms.  
“Yeah, Bobby is just like Ben though, he’s been glued to the TV screen just watching Ben play. I wish Bernice here was just as calm…” Roman laughed.  
“Bernice?” Henry asked.  
“That’s what I thought I’d name Koromon. I didn’t know if he’s a dude or a lady so I thought ‘hey it’s 2020, were in a modern era, i’ll give it a female name!’” Roman explained. Henry shook his head and laughed. He started walking towards his room when he noticed there was a light on in the bathroom. He turned to Roman.  
“Is someone here?” Henry asked.  
“OH! That’s what I forgot to mention. Yeah, some girl showed up asking for you! She seemed like she knew you so we let her in. She said she was going to the bathroom, but started the bathtub and has been in there ever since. We assumed she was another coworker or something.” Roman said.  
“Huh. That’s really weird. Could it be Blossom?” Henry asked.  
“I dunno dude, but just between you and me? She was FINE! Like damn, if you don’t snatch that girl up then I might have to.” Ben added. Henry giggled, walking up to the door and knocking on it.  
“Hello?” He asked. A familiar, scratchy voice came from inside.  
“Henry? Come in!” it said. Henry opened the door to find Noa, the girl from the digital world. She was in his bathtub, which was completely overflowing with soap bubbles that, thankfully, covered up her body. Henry gasped upon seeing her again, closing the door behind him.  
“Noa? How did you get here without a digivice?” Henry asked, grabbing a towel and getting down on his hands and knees to wipe up the water that had spilled out.  
“I’m not really sure. I fell asleep and suddenly I woke up in front of your house. I knew this was your world, so I hoped I would find you.” Noa explained. “And you could take me back home.”  
“Right… but I still don’t understand. Home? How could a human live in the digital world? Did you grow up in the digital world?” Henry asked her. She looked up at the ceiling in thought.  
“You ask so many questions.” She thought. “So beautiful you are, but you only ask about me.” She turned back to him. “I don’t remember where I grew up, but it only makes sense. The furthest memory I have is waking up and being carried by Gokumon. He said I looked ill and he would take care of me. That’s when he brought me and I met the rest of my family.”  
Henry nodded. “Well, you couldn’t be from the Digital World. Maybe you just have amnesia.”  
“Why couldn’t I be?” She retorted. Henry paused for a second.  
“That’s… actually a good point, I suppose.” Henry mumbled. “B-But whether or not you’re from here or not doesn’t mean anything right now, I just want to know how you ended up here! Bernice and Bobby showed up back in our world because they formed a bond with Roman and Ben. A bond so powerful that the digital world spat them out back here. So maybe you have a bond with someone here as well? Someone you couldn’t be without.”  
“Could it be you?” Noa asked.  
“B-but I don’t know if we’re bonded. You don’t even know me! I mean, I didn’t think we had any type of magical relationship.” Henry responded. Noa smiled.  
“I do not know anybody else from this world, Henry. It must be you.” Noa said. Henry relaxed.  
“I guess so.” Henry conceded.  
“Will you take me back to my home?” Noa asked, beginning to get up. Henry shielded his eyes away from the girl’s naked body.  
“I would feel bad about just sending you back.” He said. Suddenly, he got an idea. “But maybe I can help you so that you can come back whenever you want? I can give you a digivice of your own.”  
“A digivice?” Noa asked.  
“Yes- it’s what I use to travel between worlds…” Henry explained. “Ugh- but you don’t have a phone. M-maybe I might have an old one somewhere.” Henry opened the door to the bathroom and dashed into his room, digging around his drawers for an old phone. Noa followed him out, without a towel, completely dripping wet. Roman and Ben looked at each other with shocked expressions upon seeing the naked woman.  
Then, Henry managed to pull out a very old and extremely cracked iPhone 3 from when he was in middle school, from a drawer attached to his desk. He almost handed it to Noa, before blushing and turning away.  
“C-could you dry off and get your clothes back on?” Henry muttered. Noa looked down and nodded, grabbing a pair of old boxers Henry had thrown on the floor, and beginning to use it to dry herself.  
“OKAY! NOT THOSE! USE A TOWEL!” Henry exclaimed, snatching the underwear and rushing to grab Noa a towel. “I should really clean the old clothes off of the floor…” He grumbled, handing her the towel. Soon she was clothed and dry again. Henry grabbed her arm and the two connect-jumped into his laptop.  
The two arrived in The Homepage Village, which was once again mysteriously empty. Henry clapped twice to summon Infomon forth from the fountain. Noa watched the digimon appear with wide eyes.  
“Hello, Mister McCree, how may I be of service?” Infomon asked.  
“Um- my friend here Noa needs a digivice. Please.” Henry asked the robot. Infomon turned to Noa.  
“Hello, Miss Noa! Who is your partner digimon?” Infomon asked.  
“Gokumon!” Noa said. Infomon nodded, suddenly summoning the large skeletal digimon down from the sky, just as the B&A detective’s partners do when needed.  
“Huh? Where am I? Noa?” Gokumon said, turning to the girl.  
“Gokumon! You’re okay.” Noa said, hugging her friend. Which scared Henry, as his right hand was a scythe. Infomon reached behind her back and produced a black and gold digivice. She held the device out for Noa.  
“What is this?” Gokumon said defensively.  
“It’s a digivice!” Infomon said. Henry grabbed it and snapped it into the bottom of the iPhone, handing it to Noa.  
“There. Now you can come back to our world whenever you like.” Henry said. Noa smiled and took the phone.  
“This is amazing!” She exclaimed. She looked back up to Henry and pulled the taller man into a hug. Henry hugged her back, he couldn’t help but feel sorry for this strange girl.  
“I should be going,” Henry began.  
“No wait!” Noa interrupted. “Please come back and meet my family!” Henry looked reluctantly up to Gokumon and back to Noa.  
“O-Okay.” He said. Noa took him by the hand and led him and Gokumon into the woods. After what felt like ages of walking, Noa had brought him to a large clearing in the forest. There was a large tent and campfire. Aroung the campfire were three digimon. Two appeared identical, like small, blonde hound puppies with large eyes and rosy cheeks. And the third was a tiny pink digimon with large wings, no bigger than a human head. It held a spear and was poking at some food that was cooking over the fire. They turned to look at them.  
“Noa!” Cheered one of the puppy digimon, the two of them both ran up to greet her while the pink one remained behind. Noa got down on her knees and greeted them with hugs. Henry looked off awkwardly.  
“Hello!” Noa said. “I have a friend I’d like you guys to meet!” She motioned for Henry to get down with her, he did so. “This is Henry!”  
“Hi Henryyyyy!” Said one.  
“Henry! Henry! Henry!” The other cheered.  
“Henry, these are the Plotmon twins.” Noa explained. She put a hand on the first one. “Her name is Sola, and the other is Luna. You can tell the difference because LUNA lost her collar.” Henry looked down and noticed that Sola had a golden ring-like collar with strange inscriptions on it around her neck, where Luna did not. Noa and Henry got up as Sola and Luna led them over to the fire. Noa walked over next to the pink digimon.  
“And this here is Piccolomon. He’s not very talkative but he has a heart of gold.” Noa said, side-hugging the little digimon. It grunted, in a surprisingly gruff and masculine voice.  
“Wow. This is amazing.” Henry mused.  
“Yep! This is home.” Noa giggled. “I just wanted you to meet them, as I met your family today.” Henry laughed.  
“Roman and Ben aren’t my family, they’re just friends. Friends who I should probably be getting back to before their digimon burn the house down.” Henry said. Noa hugged him one more time.  
“I understand.” She said.  
“If you need anything at all, please feel free to come find me. My door is open for you.” He said. He lifted his phone up to the sky and disappeared once again, to return back home and enjoy his weekend. 


	7. Chapter 7

It was a rainy, cold Saturday in Brooklyn. Days like this are the perfect opportunity to sleep in and relax for most people. Raphael Mazarene was not most people. Today was a big day for him. The anticipation had built up so much that he hadn’t been able to sleep a wink. Staring blankly at the ceiling from his hotel bedroom. He was naked, his long-term girlfriend, Anne, next to him. After what felt like only minutes after she’d fallen asleep, she woke up.  
“Good morning~” The blonde woman cooed, slightly startling Raphael. “Did you go to sleep last night at all?”   
“No. How could I?” He responded. Anne laughed and got up and out of bed. Raphael sat up. He was well built and quite tall. He had tan skin and dark hair. Anne, in contrast, was very short, skinny, and pasty white. Her ice blue eyes were piercing, even half-closed and tired as they were that morning.   
“Just so eager to get to this plan of yours, huh? Well why don’t we get dressed and see if anyone else is available to come with us. Something tells me that the SkullBaluchimon those goody-goody detectives took on yesterday was NOT the only trap that cave had to offer.” Anne responded, looking in the bathroom mirror and fixing the smudged, streaked makeup on her face that was leftover from the night before. Raphael got up and headed over to a laptop that was plugged into the wall, charging on a nearby desk.  
“You can pretty much bet on it.” The man replied. He opened up a chatting website on the aforementioned laptop. Pulling up a group chat room and typing a message in. He quickly got a response.   
“Sweet of ‘Miss Riley’ to do all the work for us, though! Is someone on?” Anne asked. Raphael nodded.  
“Epsilon said he’s on and he’ll be waiting for us at the entrance of the horde.” He answered. Anne quickly put on a really baggy and worn out red shirt over leggings.   
“Any chance we can grab a coffee before? I wanna try something from a fancy New York Cafe” Anne suggested.  
“Maybe after, but we need all the time we can get today and tomorrow. The detectives are off the clock this weekend so we need every second we have.” Raphael answered, also trying to quickly get dressed, he wore a simple white shirt and denim pants, not caring to shave the 5 o’clock shadow from his face.   
“Ughh that’s no fun. Why don’t we just kill them? The collective is literally 3 TIMES the size of that puny agency.” Anne groaned.  
“Listen, they don’t know hardly anything about the prophecy, they aren’t getting in our way. Why go through the trouble of killing people and dealing with the problems of having the authorities against us when we can continue to work from the shadows without any obstacles?” Raphael reasoned. Anne rolled her eyes.  
“You never let me kill people.” She grunted, she joined Raphael over by the laptop. The two of them pulled out their cell phones, which both had DigiVices attached. Anne’s was brown and pink, while Raphael’s was white and green. They connect-jumped into the laptop, disappearing into the digital world.  
They appeared in the middle of the desert, by the well that led down to SkullBaluchimon’s horde. Shooting down from the sky to join them were their partners, Lopmon and Terriermon. Raphael didn’t so much as nod at his partner as he began climbing down. Anne scooped the leporine digimon up, allowing the twins to perch on her shoulders as she climbed down.   
At the entrance of the cave was a large, muscular man with broad shoulders. He towered over the other two, his brown hair was perfectly combed back and he wore a practical tank top, jeans, and work boots. He looks like a construction worker on the job. Next to him was his partner Ganimon, a somewhat large blue-gray crab digimon.   
“Epsilon. Glad to see you, sorry to keep you waiting.” Raphael said. Epsilon shrugged.  
“It was not a problem, Omega.” Epsilon’s held out his hand to shake Raphael’s. “Delta.” He shook Anne’s. Raphael began leading his two partners deeper into the cave. They finally came upon the horde that used to belong to SkullBaluchimon.  
“Should we be worried how quickly the B&A kids made work of SkullBaluchimon? I mean, they’re clearly getting to be quite strong.” Epsilon noted.  
“Not as strong as I will- I mean WE will be once we finally awaken the Black Star.” Raphael assured his cohort. “The Hidden Stone is not in this room.” Epsilon and Anne turned to look at him.  
“What? Why are we here?” Anne asked. Raphael laughed, walking up to the back wall of the room. He put up his hand and was suddenly able to walk through the wall like it was a hologram. Anne and Epsilon looked at each other shocked, running up to follow him. Behind the wall was an empty room with a pedestal. The pedestal held a black stone with a star design across it, encased under a glass display.   
“How did you know that?” Epsilon asked. Raphael laughed again.  
“The source code of the Digital World can be viewed with any powerful computer, just like any website or program can. All it took was me learning the specific coding language, and all the secrets of the Digital World were open for me to view.” Raphael explained. Anne began approaching the stone.  
“This is it? So we just snatch it up?” Anne began reaching for the glass, Raphael grabbed her wrist and jerked her away from it.  
“It’s not that easy! Maybe if you fucking listened to me…” Raphael pushed the woman away. Anne scoffed, grabbing her wrist in pain. “Detective Parker made the same mistake. Touch the stone, and it summons a guardian digimon with the power to corrupt your mind, you’ll go crazy like he did.”  
“So then, what do we do? How do we stop it?” Epsilon asked.  
“Wendimon and Coelamon can take the guardian, since they’re bigger. We can leave the horse and wait for Galgomon to quickly grab the stone and meet us outside. The guardian’s power doesn’t work on other digimon.” Raphael explained. The other two nodded.  
“You understand?” Anne asked the three digimon. They all nodded in agreement as well. The three humans held their phones and digivices up to the digimon.  
“Terriermon, digivolve!” Raphael exclaimed.  
“Lopmon, digivolve!” Anne repeated.  
“Ganimon, digivolve!” Epsilon finished.  
The three rookies began to glow with the signature white light, all becoming bigger. Terriermon became a larger green rabbit with mechanical gauntlets on each of his arms. Lopmon became a giant, hulking red beast with arms that almost reached the ground. Ganimon turned into a large bipedal fish-like creature with metal armor around its body.  
“Galgomon!” The green rabbit said.  
“Wendimon!” The large red beast roared.  
“Coelamon!” The fish-like digimon exclaimed.  
The humans quickly left the tunnel and used the ladder to climb out of the well. Their eyes took a moment to adjust to the bright, hot desert sun. They climbed out from the well and gathered around the mouth of the well to wait for Galgomon to retrieve the stone. They were nervously waiting, what felt like forever. And it felt like that because, in fact, they were waiting quite a bit longer than they had expected. Minutes flew by, Epsilon wiped the sweat from his forehead. He didn’t know if it was nervous sweat or because of the heat. Maybe both. Eventually the silence was becoming eerily long.  
“This is taking an awfully long time. Shouldn’t Galgomon be here already?” She asked. Raphael appeared lost in thought.  
“Do you think they’re okay?” Epsilon asked.  
“No. We need to go.” Raphael said, reaching for his phone.  
“What? Why what abou-” Anne began.  
“NOW!” Raphael shouted, grabbing Anne and Epsilon and pulling them out of the way as the ground burst open. Flying out from it was Wendimon, being carried in the class a huge, demonic digimon with large, red wings and arms that were almost as long as it’s body.  
“Wendimon! Get her down from there, Raph!” Anne began screaming.  
“We have to leave now, they’ll be fine. We can’t take Neo Devimon.” Raphael yelled at the blonde woman. He grabbed her by the waist, leaving her screaming and reaching for her digimon. He shuffled to grab his phone, but before he could lift it to connect-jump out, Anne elbowed him, allowing her to escape his grasp and run away from him and up to her unconscious digimon, still being flown around in the air by Neo Devimon. Raphael shrugged, continuing to lift his phone to connect-jump. Epsilon looked at him.  
“You’re just gonna let her die?” Epsilon asked.  
“She made her decision. I suggest you follow my lead.” Raphael grunted, leaving the digital world. Epsilon grimaced, but looked back to Anne, who was shouting at the flying digimon. He looked down at his phone and digivice and sighed, connect-jumping out.   
“Please! Let her go! We won’t take your stone, just please let my baby go! Or take me instead!” The woman shouted at the demon. Neo Devimon stopped to listen to her and seemed to think about the offer for a moment. He swooped down and dropped the hulking digimon onto the ground, instead picking Anne up. She closed her eyes, accepting her fate.  
“Deep Sorrow!” Neo Devimon yelled, opening it’s large wings, it prepared to attack the girl, but was cut off by an attack from behind from a large chain wrapping around its neck, pulling it hard into the ground. Anne opened her eyes to see the digimon that had saved her was a large robotic-like digimon with a skull for a head. Standing silently behind him was a young girl with dark hair and tan skin in a pure white dress.   
Anne managed to wriggle free from Neo Devimon’s grasp as he writhed on the ground. The robotic digimon had his other arm (which appeared like a scythe) drawn back, seemingly waiting for the girl’s orders to strike.   
“Alright, go ahead, just make it quick. We don’t wanna hurt him.” The girl said. The digimon nodded, lining his blade up to Neo Devimon’s neck and quickly cutting clean through it. Neo Devimon slowly dissolved into a pile of grey ash. Anne stood in shock, looking at the girl and her digimon. She didn’t even feel human, she had an ethereal presence, like a spirit. Her complete neutral face was jarring.  
“Thank you.” Anne said.  
“You’re welcome. Are you a detective too?” The girl asked.  
“No. Are you?” Anne responded.  
“I do not think so. I’m Noa. This is Gokumon.” She said, motioning to the digimon. Anne nodded.  
“Thank you for saving me, Noa.” Said the blonde. She felt a small tap on her leg, she turned around to see Lopmon tapping on her to get her attention. Anne gasped and scooped the bunny up into a hug.  
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m so happy that you’re okay.” She said to the brown rabbit. Lopmon let out small grunts of joy, rubbing her face into her partners like a cat would it’s owner.  
“You have a good bond with her.” Noa noted. Anne turned around.  
“Yeah, I don’t really… bond with people. But Lopmon and Terriermon are truly special to me.” She said. She suddenly looked up and gasped. “Terriermon! Is he okay?”  
Right on cue, Terriermon flew out of the well with his large ears, struggling to carry the larger Ganimon. When he landed, Anne scooped him up into the hug. Noa smiled sweetly.   
“I must be going.” Anne said. Noa nodded. Anne lifted her phone up, patting Terriermon and Lopmon on the head as she set the bunnies down. She looked at Noa before leaving. “Thank you again. I owe you one.” And with that disappeared into a beam of light.  
Back at the hotel room, Anne flashed out of the laptop. Raphael was sitting on the bed with a defeated expression. He didn’t change his expression when Anne appeared, just like Noa had a moment ago.  
“Oh. You survived.” Raphael said after an awkward silence.  
“Yeah. I did. Neo Devimon’s gone.” Anne responded.   
“Wow! Good work.” Said the man, beginning to stand up. “We must begin the second phase. Message the rest of the collective and tell them to get ready for The Ceremony.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! I’m sorry for the sudden hiatus. I had some more personal issues going on but I’m in a much better headspace to continue this fic. I am DETERMINED to finish this! So yeah, I hope you enjoyed!


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